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Oliver Goldsmith. 



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Oliver Goldsmith 



A MEMOIR 



BY 



AUSTIN DOBSON 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

Publishers 



lES RECEIVED, 



- . Congress,' ^ Z^IJJ 

Office of the T) A 

Register of Copyrights* '^ * 



Copyright, 1899, 
By Dodd, Mead and Company. 



.<4// rights reserved. 




FIRST COPY, 



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Sattiijersitg Press: 

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

Page 
The Goldsmith family ; Rev. Charles Goldsmith, of Pallas ; 
Oliver Goldsmith born there, November lo, 1728; re- 
moval to Lissoy, 1730; Oliver's first teachers, Elizabeth 
Delap and Thomas Byrne ; childish characteristics ; has 
the small-pox ; anecdotes connected therewith ; further 
schooling at Elphin, Athlone, and Edgeworthstown ; 
adventure at Ardagh ; sizar at Trinity College, Dublin, 
June II, 1744; his tutor Theaker Wilder; dislike to 
mathematics and logic ; involved in a college riot. May, 
1747; gets a small exhibition; disastrous results ; runs 
away from college ; returns ; writes songs for ballad- 
singers ; anecdote of his benevolence; takes his B.A. 
degree, February 27, 1749; relics of college life ... i 



CHAPTER II 

Waiting for orders; rejected by the Bishop of Elphin, 
1 751; tutor to Mr. Flinn; sets out for America, and 
returns ; letter to his mother ; starts again fruitlessly as 
a law student ; goes to Edinburgh to study medicine ; 
becomes a member of the Medical Society there, Jan- 
uary 13, 1753; life in Scotland; starts for Paris; ad- 
ventures by the way ; arrives at Leyden ; life there ; 
leaves Leyden, February, 1755; travels on foot through 



vi Contents 

Pagb 
Flanders and France ; travelling tutor (?) ; anecdote 
of Voltaire; further travels; arrives in England, Feb- 
ruary I, 1756 20 

CHAPTER III 

Prospect and retrospect ; first struggles on reaching Eng- 
land; comedian, apothecary's journeyman, poor physi- 
cian, press-corrector to Richardson; writes a tragedy; 
projects of Eastern exploration; assistant at PecJcham 
Academy; miseries of an usher; Peckham memories; 
bound to Grififiths the bookseller, April, 1757 ; literature 
of all work ; criticism of Gray ; quarrels with Griffiths ; 
" Memoirs of a Protestant " published, February, 1758 ; 
returns to Peckham ; new hopes ; meditating " Enquiry 
into Polite Learning; " letters to Mills, Bryanton, Mrs. 
Lawder (Jane Contarine) ; obtains and loses appoint- 
ment as medical officer at Coromandel ; rejected at Sur- 
geons' Hall as a hospital mate, December 21, 1758 . . 41 

CHAPTER IV 

Pen-portrait of Goldsmith in 1759; No. 12, Green Arbour 
Court, Old Bailey; difficulties with Griffiths; writing 
"Memoirs of Voltaire;" letter to Henry Goldsmith, 
February, 1759; visit from Dr. Percy, March; "En- 
quiry into Polite Learning " published, April 2 ; account 
of that book ; its reception ; contributions to The Busy 
Body, and The Ladys Magazine ; The Bee, October 
to November; its reference to Johnson; minor verse . 64 

CHAPTER V 

Amenities of authorship ; Newbery and Smollett ; work for 
The British Magazine; " History of Miss Stanton;" 



Contents vii 

Page 
other contributions ; The Public Ledger; Chinese letters 
begun, January 24, 1760 ; The Lady^s Magazine; moves 
into 6, Wine Office Court, Fleet Street; entertains 
Johnson there, May 31, 1761; " Memoirs of Voltaire " 
published; "History of Mecklenburgh " published, 
February 26, 1762 ; Cock Lane Ghost pamphlet; " Citi- 
zen of the World" published, May i ; account of that 
book; " The Man in Black " and " Beau Tibbs; " an- 
ecdotes ; Plutarch's lives begun, May i ; out of town ; 
"Life of Nash" published, October 14; sale of third 
share in "Vicar of Wakefield" to Benjamin Collins, 
printer, of Salisbury, October 28 84 



CHAPTER VI 

Goldsmith at Salisbury (?); removes to Mrs. Fleming's at 
Islington; Mrs. Fleming's bills; hack-work for New- 
bery; " History of England in a Series of Letters from 
a Nobleman to his Son" published, June 26, 1764; 
Hogarth at Islington ; his portraits of Mrs. Fleming (?) 
and Goldsmith; " The Club," 1764; its origin and first 
members; Goldsmith "as he struck his contempo- 
raries " ; writing " The Traveller " at Islington ; publi- 
cation of that poem, December ig; its dedication to his 
brother Henry; Johnson's influence and opinion; char- 
acteristics and bibliography ; sum paid to author . . 103 



CHAPTER VH 

"Essays: by Mr. Goldsmith" published, June 4, 1765; 
the poetical essays ; makes acquaintance with Nugent ; 
visits Northumberland House ; "Edwin and Angelina" 
privately printed; resumes practice as a physician ; epi- 



viii Contents 

Page 
sode of Mrs. Sidebotham; " The Vicar of Wakefield " 
published, March 27, 1766; Boswell's "authentic" ac- 
count of the sale of the manuscript ; variants of Mrs. 
Piozzi, Hawkins, Cumberland, and Cook ; attempt to 
harmonise the Johnson story and the Collins purchase ; 
date of composition of book ; its characteristics ; theories 
of Mr. Ford ; bibliography and sale . • 124 



CHAPTER VIII 

" The Vicar " and " The Traveller " as investments ; trans- 
lation of Formey's " History of Philosophy and Philoso- 
phers " published, June, 1766; "Poems for Young 
Ladies" published, December 15; English Grammar 
written; " Beauties of English Poesy" published, April, 
1767; letter to the St. jf antes'' s Chronicle, July; living 
at Canonbury House; at the Temple; visited by Parson 
Scott; " Roman History"; the Wednesday Club; pop- 
ularity of genteel comedy ; plans a play ; story of " The 
Good Natur'd Man ; " its production at Covent Garden, 
January 29, 1768; its reception; Goldsmith on the first 
night ; his gains ; Davies on the dramatis fersonce ; 
Johnson on Goldsmith 148 



CHAPTER IX 

Moves to 2, Brick Court, Middle Temple ; relaxations and 
festivities; the Seguin recollections; death of Henry 
Goldsmith; begins " The Deserted Village;" methods 
of poetical composition; "Shoemaker's Holidays;" 
Goldsmith's companions ; " The Shoemaker's Para- 
dise" at Edgeware; Mr. Bott, the barrister; old com- 
pilations and new ; epilogue to Mrs. Lenox's " Sister " ; 
a dinner at Boswell's; appointed Professor of History 



Contents ix 

Pagb 
to the Royar Academy, December; letter to Maurice 
Goldsmith, January; portrait painted by Reynolds; 
"The Deserted Village" published, May '26, 1770; 
depopulation theory ; identity of Auburn and Lissoy ; 
enduring qualities of the poem; farewell to poetry; 
amount received by author 168 



CHAPTER X 

The Horneck family; "Life of Thomas Parnell" pub- 
lished, July 13, 1770; visit to Paris,, and letters to Rey- 
nolds; "Abridgment of Roman History," September; 
"Life of Bolingbroke" published, December; Lord 
Clare and "The Haunch of Venison"; at the Royal 
Academy dinner; at Edgeware; " History of England" 
published, August 6, 1771 ; letter to Langton, September 
17; prologue to Cradock's " Zobeide," December 11; 
" Threnodia Augustalis" published, February 20, 1772; 
letter in prose and verse to Mrs. Bunbury; story of 
"She Stoops to Conquer"; production of that play at 
Covent Garden, March 15, 1773 ; its success .... 191 



CHAPTER XI 

A libellous attack and its sequel; dining out at Ogle- 
thorpe's and Paoli's; "The Grumbler"; more task 
work; "Grecian History"; "Dictionary of Arts and 
Sciences"; "Retaliation"; epitaphs on Garrick and 
Reynolds ; epitaph on Caleb Whitefoord ; last illness ; 
dies, April 4, 1774; buried on the 9th in the burying- 
ground of the Temple Church; Johnson's epitaph ; memo- 
rials and statue . 217 



X Contents 

CHAPTER XII 

Page 
Portraits of Goldsmith ; testimonies as to character; money 
difficulties, and " folly of expense ; " alleged love 
of play ; of fine clothes and entertainments ; generosity 
and benevolence ; alleged envy and malice ; position 
in society ; conversation ; relations with Johnson ; 
conclusion 234 

APPENDIX 

Letters to Daniel Hodson and Thomas Bond 256 

INDEX 263 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH 
A Memoir 



CHAPTER I 

The Goldsmith family; Rev. Charles Goldsmith, of Pallas; 
Oliver Goldsmith born there, November lo, 1728; removal to 
Lissoy, 1730; Oliver's first teachers, Elizabeth Delap and 
Thomas Byrne ; childish characteristics ; has the small-pox ; 
anecdotes connected therewith ; further schooling at Elphin, 
Athlone, and Edgeworthstown ; adventure at Ardagh ; sizar 
at Trinity College, Dublin, June 11, 1744; his tutor Theaker 
Wilder; dislike to mathematics and logic; involved in a 
college riot, May, 1747; gets a small exhibition; disastrous 
results ; runs away from college ; returns ; writes songs for 
ballad-singers; anecdote of his benevolence; takes his B.A. 
degree, February 27, 1749; relics of college life. 

TF the researches of the first biographers of 
-*■ Oliver Goldsmith are to be relied upon, the 
Goldsmith family was of English origin, the Irish 
branch having migrated from this country to 
Ireland somewhere about the sixteenth century. 
One of the earliest members traced by Prior was 
a certain John Goldsmyth, who, in i ^41 , held the 
office of searcher in the port of Galway, and was 
shortly afterwards promoted by Henry VIII. to 
be Clerk of the Council. A descendant of this 



2 Oliver Goldsmith 

John, according to tradition, married one Juan 
Romeiro, a Spanish gentleman, who, having 
travelled in Ireland, finally took up his abode 
there. His children, retaining the name and 
the Protestant faith of their mother, settled in 
Roscommon, Longford, and Westmeath, where 
of old many traces of them existed which have 
now disappeared. Some became clergymen, 
and, during the rebellion of 1641, did not escape 
the animosity attaching to their cloth. Nor was 
this their solitary distinction. The maiden name 
of James Wolfe's mother was Goldsmith, and 
the Goldsmiths consequently claimed kinship 
with the conqueror of Quebec. Another and 
more shadowy connection was supposed to 
exist with Oliver Cromwell, from whom the 
poet was wont to declare that his own Christian 
name was derived. But as his maternal grand- 
father was called Oliver Jones, it is probable that 
no great importance need be attached to this 
assertion. It is more to the point to note that 
the whole of the Irish Goldsmiths seem to have 
been distinguished by common characteristics. 
Even as, in the later ** Vicar of Wakefield," 
the " Blenkinsops could never look straight 
before them, nor the Mugginses blow out a 
candle," so the actual ancestors of the author 
of that immortal book have a marked mental 



A Memoir 3 

likeness. They may, indeed, be described in 
almost the exact words applied to the Primrose 
family. They were " all equally generous, 
credulous, simple — " and improvident. 

But the further history of the first Goldsmiths 
may be neglected in favour of that particular 
member of the race in whom, for the moment, 
this biography is chiefly interested — the Rev. 
Charles Goldsmith of Pallas, Oliver Goldsmith's 
father. Charles Goldsmith was the second son 
of Robert Goldsmith of Ballyoughter, by his wife 
Catherine, daughter of Thomas Crofton, D. D., 
sometime dean of Elphin. In 1707, he went to 
Trinity College, Dublin, as a pensioner, passing 
through it with credit. Among his university 
associates, it was said by his son, was Parnell 
the poet, and he is also believed to have been 
acquainted with Swift's friend — "the punster, 
quibbler, fiddler and wit," Thomas Sheridan, 
grandfather of the author of the " School for 
Scandal." In May, 1718, Charles Goldsmith 
married Ann, daughter of the Rev. Oliver Jones, 
master of the diocesan school at Elphin, where 
he himself had been educated. Having taken 
this step without means, and his father-in-law 
being also a poor man, his prospects were of the 
vaguest. But his wife's uncle, the Rev. Mr. 
Green of Kilkenny West, o^ered the young 



4 Oliver Goldsmith 

couple an asylum at Pallas or Pallasmore In 
Longford, not very far from the town of Bally- 
mahon. It was a tumble-down, fairy-haunted 
farmhouse overlooking the pleasant river Inny, 
which runs through Ballymahon to Lough Ree ; 
and here, while he divided his time between 
farming a few fields and assisting Mr. Green 
in his clerical duties, five children were born 
to Charles Goldsmith — three girls, Margaret, 
Catherine, and Jane ; and two boys, Henry and 
Oliver. The last named, who saw the light on 
November lo, 1728, is the subject of these pages. 
When Oliver Goldsmith was born, his father's 
annual income as a curate and farmer, even when 
swelled by the contributions of friends, amounted 
to no more than forty pounds. But two years 
later Mr. Green died, and Charles Goldsmith 
succeeded to the vacant Rectory of Kilkenny 
West, transferring his residence to Lissoy, a little 
village on the right of the road from Ballymahon 
to Athlone. His house, which was connected 
with the highway by a long avenue of ash-trees, 
had an orchard and a pleasant garden at the back. 
The new living was worth nearly two hundred a 
year ; and here Charles Goldsmith continued to 
maintain that kindly hospitable household, which 
his son sketched later in the narrative of the 
*' Man in Black." " His education was above 



A Memoir S 

his fortune, and his generosity greater than his 
education. Poor as he was, he had his flatterers 
still poorer than himself; for every dinner he 
gave them, they returned him an equivalent in 
praise. ... He told the story of the ivy-tree, 
and that was laughed at ; he repeated the jest of 
the two scholars and one pair of breeches, and 
the company laughed at that ; but the story of 
Taffy in the sedan chair was sure to set the table 
in a roar." ^ Neither his practice nor his precepts 
were those which make rich men. Learnings, he 
held, was better than silver or gold, and benevo- 
lence than either. In this way he brought up 
his children to be ** mere machines of pity," and 
"perfectly instructed them in the art of giving 
away thousands before they were taught the more 
necessary qualifications of getting a farthing." 

In the meantime little Oliver was transferred 
to the care of Elizabeth Delap, a relative and 
dependant, who taught him his letters. Years 
afterwards, when she was an old woman of 
ninety, she described this as no easy task. Her 
pupil, she affirmed, was exceedingly dull and 
stupid, although she admitted that he was easily 
managed. From this unflattering instructress 
he passed to the far more congenial tuition of the 
village schoolmaster, Thomas Byrne. Byrne was 

^ Citizen of the World, 1762, i, 104. 



6 Oliver Goldsmith 

a character in his way, some of whose traits re- 
appear in the pedagogue of " The Deserted Vil- 
lage." He had been a soldier in Queen Anne's 
wars in Spain, and had led a wandering, adven- 
turous life, of which he was always willing to talk. 
He was besides something of a bookman, dab- 
bled in rhyme, and was even capable of extem- 
porising a respectable Irish version of VirgiFs 
eclogues. Furthermore, in addition to being 
an adept in all the fairy lore of Ireland, he was 
deeply read in the records of its pirates, robbers, 
and smugglers. One can imagine little Oliver 
hanging upon the lips of this entrancing teacher, 
when he discoursed, not only of "the exploits 
of Peterborough and Stanhope, the surprise of 
Monjuich, and the glorious disaster of Brihuega," 
but also of ghosts and banshees, and of '' the 
great Rapparee chiefs, Baldearg O'Donnell and 
galloping Hogan."'- No wonder the boy's 
friends traced to these distracting narratives his 
aimless, vagrant future. He, too, began to scrib- 
ble doggerel, to devour the chap-book histories 
of " Fair Rosamond" and the ^' Seven Cham- 
pions," or to study with avidity the less edifying 
chronicles of " Moll Flanders" and "Jack the 
Bachelor." 
There were, moreover, other influences at this 

1 Macaulay's Miscellaneous Writings^ 1865, PP* 298, 299. 



A Memoir 7 

time to stir his childish imagination, which could 
scarcely have found him the " impenetrably 
stupid " pupil of his first mistress. There were 
the songs of the blind harper, O'Carolan, to 
awaken in him a love of music which he never 
lost, and there was Peggy Golden^ his father's 
dairy-maid, to charm his ears with "Johnny 
Armstrong's Last Good Night," or "The Cru- 
elty of Barbara Allen." But an untoward cir- 
cumstance served to interrupt, if not to end, 
these "violent delights." So severely was he 
attacked by confluent small-pox that he nearly 
lost his life, and ever afterwards bore the traces 
of that disorder deeply scored upon his features. 
Indeed, it may be said to have also left its 
mark upon his character. Always " subject to 
particular humours," alternating often between 
extreme reserve and boisterous animal spirits, 
his natural tendencies were not improved by his 
changed appearance. One of the earliest anec- 
dotes recorded of him turns upon this misfortune. 
" Why, Noll I " said an inconsiderate male rela- 
tive, not particularly distinguished for his wisdom 
or integrity, " you are become a fright I When 
do you mean to get handsome again ? " The 
boy moved uneasily to the window without 
replying, and the question was sneeringly re- 
peated. " I mean to get better, sir, when you 



8 Oliver Goldsmith 

do," he answered at last. Upon another occa- 
sion, when there was a party at his uncle's house, 
little Oliver capered forth, in the pause between 
two country dances, and indulged the company 
with a hornpipe. His seamed face and his un- 
gainly figure — for he was short and thick of 
stature — excited considerable amusement, and 
the fiddler, a youth named Gumming, called out 
'' iEsop." But to the surprise of the guests, the 
dancer promptly retorted, — 

" Heralds ! proclaim aloud ! all saying. 
See yEsop dancing, and his Monkey playing " — 

a couplet which, even if it were based upon a 
recollection, as is most probable, at all events 
served its purpose by turning the laugh against 
the musician. 

When these events took place he had already, 
for some obscure reason, been transferred from 
Byrne's care to the school at Elphin, of which 
his grandfather had once been master ; and he 
was living with his father's brother, John Gold- 
smith of Ballyoughter. The aforementioned 
instances of his quickness, no doubt carefully 
preserved and repeated by admiring relatives, 
were held to be significant of latent parts ; and 
it was decided that, notwithstanding the ex- 
penses of his elder brother Henry's education. 



A Memoir 9 

which were draining his father's scanty means, 
he should have all attainable advantages. From 
Elphin, relatives apparently aiding, he was sent 
to Athlone to a school kept by a Mr. Campbell. 
It does not appear that he presented himself to 
his schoolfellows in the same light as to those of 
his family who saw him at his best. Mr. Annes- 
ley Strean, who, in later days, became curate of 
Kilkenny West, and conversed with many of 
Goldsmith's contemporaries, found him to have 
been regarded by them ''as a stupid, heavy 
blockhead, little better than a fool, whom every 
one made fun of. But his corporal powers dif- 
fered widely from this apparent state of his mind, 
for he was remarkably active and athletic ; of 
which he gave proofs in all exercises among his 
playmates, and eminently in ball-playing, which 
he was very fond of, and practised whenever he 
could." 1 

After he had been two years at Athlone, Mr. 
Campbell gave up the school from ill-health, and 
Oliver passed to the care of the Rev. Patrick 
Hughes of Edgeworthstown, a friend of his 
father. His happiest schooldays must have been 
with this master. Mr. Hughes understood him. 
He penetrated his superficial obtuseness, recog- 
nised his morbidly sensitive nature, and managed 

1 Mangin's Essay on Light Reading, 1808, p. 49. 



lo Oliver Goldsmith 

at any rate to think better of him than his play- 
mates, many of whom only succeeded in grow- 
ing up to be blockheads. At Edgeworthstown 
there were traditions of his studies, of his love for 
Ovid and Horace, of his hatred for Cicero and 
his delight in Livy and Tacitus, of his prowess 
in boyish sports and the occasional robbing of 
orchards. But the best anecdote of this time is 
one which belongs to the close of his last holi- 
days, when he was between fourteen and fifteen 
years of age. Having set oif for school on a 
borrowed hack, and equipped with boundless 
riches in the shape of a guinea given him by a 
friend, he amused himself by viewing the neigh- 
bouring country seats on the road, intending 
ultimately to put up like a gentleman at an inn. 
Night fell, and he found himself at Ardagh, half 
way on his journey. Casting about for informa- 
tion as to " the best house," that is to say, the 
inn in the neighbourhood, he unluckily lit upon 
one Cornelius Kelly, who had been fencing- 
master to the Marquis of Granby, but, what is 
more to the purpose, was a confirmed wag 
and practical joker. Amused with Oliver's 
schoolboy swagger, he gravely directed him to 
the mansion of the local magnate, Squire 
Featherston. To Squire Featherston's the lad 
accordingly repaired, and called lustily for some 



A Memoir ii 

one to take his horse. Being ushered into 
the presence of the supposed landlord and his 
family, he ordered a good supper, invited the 
rest to share it, treated them to a bottle or two 
of wine, and finally retired to rest, leaving care- 
ful injunctions that a hot cake should be pre- 
pared for his breakfast on the morrow. His 
host, who was a humourist, and moreover knew 
something of his visitor's father, never unde- 
ceived him ; and it was not until he quitted the 
supposed inn next day that he learned, to his con- 
fusion, that he had been entertained at a private 
house. Thus early in Oliver Goldsmith's career 
was rehearsed the first sketch of the successful 
comedy of '' She Stoops to Conquer." 

But the time was approaching when he was 
to enter upon the college life to which all his 
education had been tending. He had hoped to 
go to Trinity College as a pensioner, like his 
brother Henry, who in 1743 had triumphantly 
obtained a scholarship. This, however, was not 
to be. Henry Goldsmith had been engaged as 
tutor to the son of a gentleman named Hodson, 
residing near Athlone, and out of this connec- 
tion had resulted a secret marriage between his 
pupil and his sister Catherine. From a worldly 
point of view the match was an excellent one, 
as the Hodsons were wealthy and well-to-do ; 



12 Oliver Goldsmith 

but the reproaches of the young man's father 
stung Charles Goldsmith into taking a step 
which seriously crippled his resources. He 
entered into an engagement to pay a marriage 
portion of ;^ 400 with his daughter, and to this 
end taxed his farm and tithes until it should be 
defrayed. There was more of wounded pride 
than of strict justice in this procedure, which 
must have kept his family pinched until his 
death. The immediate result of it was a change 
in the prospects of his second son. It was no 
longer possible to send him to college as a 
pensioner ; he must go in a more economical 
way as a "sizar" or poor scholar. At that 
time, as now, the sizars of Trinity College were 
educated without charge ; they had free lodgings 
in the college garrets, and they were permitted 
to "batten on cold bits" from the commons, 
table. But in return for these privileges, they 
wore a distinctive costume, and were required 
to perform certain menial offices, now abolished. 
Young Oliver, endowed by nature with " an 
exquisite sensibility of contempt" — to use his 
later words — fought hard against this humiliat- 
ing entry into academic life. For a long time 
he resisted his fate ; but finally, owing to the 
influence of a friendly uncle, the Rev. Mr. 
Contarine, who had already assisted in educat- 



A Memoir 13 

ing him, he yielded, and was admitted to 
Trinity College, Dublin, as a poor scholar, on 
the nth of June, 1744, being then fifteen. In 
the lives of Forster and Prior, the year of 
admission is given as 1745 ; but this has been 
shown by Dr. J. F. Waller to be an error. 
Another Edgeworthstown pupil of the name of 
Beatty came with him ; and the pair took up 
their abode in the garrets of what was then No. 
35 in a range of buildings which has long since 
disappeared, but at that time formed the eastern 
side of Parliament Square. 

If the circumstances of Goldsmith's initiation 
into college life were scarcely favourable to his 
idiosyncrasy, he was still more unfortunate in 
the tutor with whom he was placed. The Rev. 
Theaker Wilder, to whose care he fell, although 
a man of considerable ability, was apparently 
the last person in the world by whom his pupil's 
peculiarities could be indulgently or even tem- 
perately regarded. Wilder was a man of vin- 
dictive character, morose and, at times, almost 
ferocious in his demeanour. Once — so the 
story goes — with a sudden bound upon a pass- 
ing hackney-coach, he felled to the ground its 
luckless driver, who had accidentally touched 
his face with his whip. Under such a master 
Goldsmith could but fare ill. His ungainly 



14 Oliver Goldsmith 

appearance, his awkwardness, and a certain 
mental unreadiness, which he never afterwards 
lost, except when he had pen in hand, left him 
wholly at the mercy of his persecutor, who saw 
in him nothing but the evidence of a dense and 
stubborn disposition. To make matters worse. 
Wilder delighted in mathematics, and Goldsmith 
detested them as much as Gray did. "This," 
he said later, in a passage which had more of 
bitter recollection than absolute accuracy — 
" seems a science, to which the meanest in- 
tellects are equal. I forget who it is that says 
* All men might understand mathematics, if 
they would.'" The "dreary subtleties" of 
" Dutch Burgersdyck" and Polish Smeglesius, 
the luminaries who then presided over the study 
of logic, equally repelled him, as they had re- 
pelled his predecessor, Swift. Everything was 
thus against his advancement to honours, and 
the measure of his disqualification was filled up 
by a certain idle habit of " perpetually lounging 
about the college-gate," (of which, by the way, 
Johnson was also accused at Oxford,) and by a 
boyish love of pleasure and amusement. He 
sang with considerable taste : he played pass- 
ably upon the German flute. Both of these 
accomplishments made him popular with many 
of his fellows, but they were not those from 



A Memoir 15 

whose ranks the distinguished members of an 
university are usually recruited. 

With these characteristics, that he should be 
associated with the scandals rather than with 
the successes of an academic career is perhaps 
to be anticipated. Accordingly, in May, 1747, 
we find him involved in a college riot. A 
report had been circulated that a scholar had 
been arrested in Fleet Street (Dublin). This 
was an indignity to which no gownsman could 
possibly submit. Led by a wild fellow called 
*' Gallows " Walsh, who, among the students, 
exercised the enviable and self-conferred office 
of " Controller-General of tumults inordinary," 
they carried the bailiff's den by storm, stripped 
the unfortunate wretch who was the chief offen- 
der, and ducked him soundly in the college 
cistern. Intoxicated by this triumph and rein- 
forced by the town mob, they then proceeded 
to attack the tumble-down old prison known as 
the " Black Dog/' with a view to a general 
gaol delivery. But the constable of that for- 
tress, being k resolute man, well provided with 
firearms, made a gallant defence, the result 
being that two of the townsmen were killed 
and others wounded. Four of the ringleaders 
in this disastrous affair were expelled. Oliver 
Goldsmith was not among these ; but having 



1 6 Oliver Goldsmith 

*' aided and abetted," he was, with three others, 
publicly admonished, ^^ quod seditioni favisset 
et tumultuantibus op em tulisset.'' 

From the stigma of this censure, he recovered 
shortly afterwards by a small success. He tried 
for a scholarship and failed ; but he gained an 
exhibition amounting to some thirty shillings. 
Unhappily this only led to a fresh mishap. 
His elation prompted him to celebrate his good 
fortune by an entertainment at his rooms, which, 
to add to its enormity, included persons of both 
sexes. No sooner was the unwonted sound of 
a fiddle heard in the heights of No. 35, than 
the exasperated Wilder burst upon the assem- 
bly, dispersing the terrified guests, and, after a 
torrent of abuse, knocked down the hapless 
host. The disgrace was overwhelming. Hastily 
gathering his books together, the poor lad sold 
them for what they would fetch, and fairly ran 
away, vaguely bound for America. He loitered, 
however, in Dublin until his means were re- 
duced to a shilling, and then set out for Cork. 
After reaching perilously close to starvation — 
for he afterwards told Reynolds that a handful 
of grey peas, given to him at this time by a 
good-natured girl at a wake, was the most com- 
fortable repast he had ever made — he recovered 
his senses, and turned his steps homewards. 



A Memoir 17 

His brother Henry (his father, the Rev. Charles 
Goldsmith, having died some three months ear- 
lier) came halfway to meet and receive him. 
Ultimately a kind of reconciliation was patched 
up with his tutor, and he was restored to the 
arms of his Alma Mater. 

Henceforth his university life was less event- 
ful. Wilder still, after his fashion, pursued his 
pupil with taunts and irony. But, beyond fre- 
quent *' turnings-down," the college records 
contain no further evidence of unusual irregu- 
larity. His pecuniary supplies, always doubt- 
ful, had become more uncertain since his father's 
death, and now consisted chiefly of intermittent 
contributions from kind-hearted Uncle Con- 
tarine, and other friends. Often he must have 
been wholly dependent upon petty loans from 
his schoolmate Beatty, from his cousin Robert 
Bryanton, from his relative Edward Mills of 
Roscommon, — all of whom were his contem- 
poraries at Trinity. Sometimes he was reduced 
to pawn his books — " mutare quadrata rotundis, 
like the silly fellow in Horace," — as Wilder 
classically put it. Another method of making 
money, to which he occasionally resorted, was 
ballad-writing of a humble kind. There was a 
shop at the sign of the Rein-deer in Mountrath 
Court, where, at five shillings a head, he found a 



1 8 Oliver Goldsmith 

ready market for his productions, and it is related 
that he would steal out at nightfall to taste that 
supreme delight of the not-too-experienced poet, 
the hearing them sung by the wandering min- 
strels of the Dublin streets. Not seldom, it is 
to be feared, his warmth of heart prevented 
even these trivial gains from benefiting him, 
and like the " machine of pity " which his father 
had brought him up to be, he had parted with 
them to some importunate petitioner before he 
reached his home. Of his inconsiderate charity 
in this way a ludicrous anecdote is told. Once 
Edward Mills, coming to summon him to break- 
fast, was answered from within, that he must 
burst open the door, as his intended guest was 
unable to rise. He was, in fact, struggling to 
extricate himself from the ticking of his bed, 
into which, in the extreme cold, he had crawled, 
having surrendered his blankets to a poor wo- 
man who, on the preceding night, had van- 
quished him v/ith a pitiful story. 

On the 27th February, 1749, he was admitted 
to the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and his 
college days came to an end. One of the relics 
of this epoch, a/o/io Scapula, scrawled liberally 
with signatures and " promises to pay," was, in 
1837, in the possession of his first biographer. 
Prior. He also left his autograph on one of the 



A Memoir 19 

panes of No. 35. When, sixty years ago, that 
row of buildings was pulled down^ this treasure 
was transferred to the library room of Trinity 
College, where it remains. But perhaps the 
most significant memorial of his Dublin life is 
to be found in a passage from one of his later 
letters to his brother Henry. "The reasons 
you have given me for breeding up your son a 
scholar are judicious and convincing. ... If he 
be assiduous, and divested of strong passions, 
(for passions in youth always lead to pleasure,) 
he may do very well in your college ; for it must 
be owned, that the industrious poor have good 
encouragement there, perhaps better than in 
any other in Europe. But if he has ambition, 
strong passions, and an exquisite sensibility of 
contempt, do not send him there, unless you 
have no other trade for him except your own." ^ 
1 Miscellaneous Works^ 1801, i, 55. 



CHAPTER II 

Waiting for orders; rejected by the Bishop of Elphin, 175 1; 
tutor to Mr. Fhnn ; sets out for America, and returns ; letter 
to his mother ; starts again fruitlessly as a law student ; goes 
to Edinburgh to study medicine ; becomes a member of the 
Medical Society there, January 13, 1753; life in Scotland; 
starts for Paris ; adventures by the way ; arrives at Leyden ; 
life there; leaves Leyden, February, 1755; travels on foot 
through Flanders and France ; travelling tutor (?) ; anecdote 
of Voltaire; further travels; arrives in England, February i, 
1756. 

T^rHEN Oliver Goldsmith assembled his 
^ ^ poor belongings, and took his last, and 
possibly regretful, look at that scrawled signa- 
ture on the window of No. 35 which was to 
become so precious a memento to posterity, his 
prospects were of the most indefinite kind. His 
father's death had broken up the old home at 
Lissoy ; and the house itself was now occupied 
by Mr. Hodson, to whom the land had fallen 
in consequence of the arrangements made by 
Charles Goldsmith for endowing his daughter 
Catherine. Henry Goldsmith was domiciled in 
the farm at Pallas, serving the curacy of Kil- 
kenny West, and teaching the village school. 



A Memoir 21 

Mrs. Goldsmith, Oliver's mother, had retired to 
a little cottage at Ballymahon, and her circum- 
stances were not such as enabled her to support 
her son, especially as she had other children. 
Obviously he must do something, but what ? 
The church appeared to afford the only practi- 
cable opening ; and he was urged by his rela- 
tives and his Uncle Contarine to qualify for 
orders. To this proposal he had himself strong 
objections. *'To be obliged to wear a long 
wig, when he liked a short one, or a black coat, 
when he generally dressed in brown," — he said 
afterwards in "The Citizen of the World," — 
was "a restraint upon his liberty." Perhaps 
also — to quote a reason he gave in later life 
for not reading prayers — he "did not think 
himself good enough." Yet he yielded to the 
importunity of those about him ; and as he was 
too young to be ordained, agreed to make the 
needful preparations. "There is reason to 
believe," remarks Prior, gravely, " that at this 
time he followed no systematic plan of study." 
On the contrary, he seems to have occupied 
himself in a much more agreeable manner. 
From Ballymahon he wandered to Lissoy, from 
Lissoy to Pallas, from Pallas to Uncle Con- 
tarine's at Roscommon, leading, as Thackeray 
says, " the life of a buckeen," which is a minor 



2 2 Oliver Goldsmith 

form of " squireen," which again is the diminu- 
tive of 'squire. In most of its characteristics, 
his mode of existence must have resembled that 
of the typical eighteenth-century younger 
brother, Will Wimble. It was made up largely 
of journeyings from one house to another, of 
friendly fetching and carrying, of fishing and 
otter hunting in the isleted River Inny, of 
throwing the hammer at neighbouring fairs, 
of flute playing with his cousin, Jane Contarine, 
and, lastly, of taking the chair at the convivial 
meetings held nightly at one George Conway's 
Inn at Ballymahon. Here he was a triton 
among the minnows, the delight of horse-doctors 
and bagmen, and the idol of his former college 
associate, Bob Bryanton, now of Ballymulvey. 
In days to come he would recur fondly to this 
disengaged, irresponsible time. It was of him- 
self, not Tony Lumpkin, that he was thinking, 
when he attributed to that unlettered humourist 
the composition of the excellent drinking song 
in *' She Stoops to Conquer." It was of him- 
self, too, that he wrote — though his biographers 
have ignored the fact — when he makes him de- 
clare that he " always lov'd Cousin Con's hazel 
eyes, and her pretty long fingers, that she twists 
this way and that, over the haspicholls, like a 



A Memoir 23 

parcel of bobbins."^ For who should ^' Cousin 
Con " be but Jane Contarine ? 

There was, however, to be little romance of 
this kind in Oliver's chequered life. *' Cousin 
Con" in time became Mrs. Lawder, and the 
inevitable hour at length arrived when the part- 
ner of her concerts must present himself for 
ordination to the Right Rev. Dr. Synge, Bishop 
of Elphin, by whom, sad to say, he was rejected. 
Whether, as is most probable, he had neglected 
the preliminary studies, whether the bishop 
had heard an ill report of his college career, 
or whether, as Mr. Strean asserted, he com- 
mitted the solecism of appearing before his 
examiner in a pair of flaming scarlet breeches, ^ 
are still debatable questions. The fact remains 
that he was refused acceptance as a clergyman, 
and must find a fresh vocation. Uncle Con- 
tarine, good at need, fitted him with a place as 
tutor to a gentleman of Roscommon of the name 
of Flinn. But he speedily, in consequence of 
the confinement, according to one account, in 
consequence of a quarrel about cards, accord- 
ing to another, relinquished this employ ; and, 
with thirty pounds of savings in his pocket, a 
circumstance which, to some extent, negatives 

1 She Stoops to Conquer, Act iv. 

2 Mangin's Essay on Light Readings i8o8, p. 150. 



24 Oliver Goldsmith 

the card story, quitted his mother's house on a 
good horse, and an uncertain errand. In about 
six weeks he re-appeared, without money, and 
having substituted for his roadster a miserable 
animal which he had christened contemptuously 
by the name of Fiddleback. His mode of de- 
parture had been somewhat inconsiderate ; his 
mode of returning was eminently unsatisfactory, 
and Mrs. Goldsmith was naturally greatly in- 
censed. Nor was she in any wise mollified by his 
simple wonderment that, after all his struggles to 
get home again, she was not more pleased to 
see him. His brothers and sisters, however, 
effected a reconciliation ; and he afterwards 
wrote to his mother from Pallas a detailed 
account of his adventures. The letter, of which 
Prior gives a copy, is believed to be authentic ; 
but it is more than suspected that romance has 
coloured the narrative. He had gone to Cork, 
it says, sold his horse, and taken a passage for 
America. But the ship sailed without him when 
he was junketing in the country, and he re- 
mained in Cork until he had but two guineas 
left. Thereupon he had invested in '^that 
generous beast, Fiddleback," and turned Bally- 
mahonwards with a residuum of five shillings in 
his pocket, half of which went promptly to a 
poor woman he met on the road. He then pro- 



A Memoir 25 

ceeded to call upon a college friend, who had 
often given him one of those warm general in- 
vitations which are conventionally extended to 
unlikely visitors. His host turned out to be a 
miser and a valetudinarian, who shamelessly 
parodied Bishop Jewel by recommending him to 
sell his horse, and purchase a stout walking stick.^ 
While staying with this inhospitable entertainer, 
he made the acquaintance of a counsellor-at-law 
in the neighbourhood, " a man of engaging aspect 
and polite address," who asked him to dinner. 
" And now, my dear mother," the letter con- 
cludes, " I found sufficient to reconcile me to all 
my follies ; for here I spent three whole days. 
The counsellor had two sweet girls to his 
daughters, who played enchantingly on the 
harpischord ; and yet it was but a melancholy 
pleasure I felt the first time I heard them ; for 
that being the first time also that either of them 
had touched the instrument since their mother's 
death, I saw the tears in silence trickle down 
their father's cheeks. I every day endeavoured 
to go away, but every day was pressed and 
obliged to stay. On my going, the counsellor 
offered me his purse, with a horse and servant 
to convey me home ; but the latter I declined, 
and only took a guinea to bear my necessary ex- 

1 Cf. Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, i, 20. 



26 Oliver Goldsmith 

penses on the road." ^ And thus he had arrived 
at Ballymahon. 

The next step is thus briefly recounted by his 
sister, Mrs. Hodson. " His uncle Contarine, 
who was also reconciled to him, now resolved to 
send him to the Temple, that he might make the 
law his profession. But in his way to London, 
he met at Dublin with a sharper who tempted 
him to play, and emptied his pockets of fifty 
pounds, with which he had been furnished for 
his voyage and journey. He was obliged again 
to return to his poor mother, whose sorrow at 
his miscarriages need not be described, and his 
own distress and disgrace may readily be con- 
ceived."^ To this Prior adds that the sharper 
was a Roscommon acquaintance; and that Gold- 
smith continued some time in Dublin without 
daring to confess his loss. According to Mrs. 
Hodson, "he was again forgiven;" but his 
mother, it appears, declined to receive him, and 
he took up his abode with his brother Henry. 
This last arrangement was interrupted by a 
quarrel, and in all probability most of the 
remaining time he spent in Ireland was passed 
with his long-suffering Uncle Contarine. The 
old flute playing was resumed, and there are 

1 Prior's Life, 1837, i, 125. 

2 Miscellaneous Works ^ 1801, i, 14. 



A Memoir 27 

traditions that he occupied his leisure in the con- 
fection of more or less amatory lyrics for his 
" Cousin Con's " edification. But the time was 
fast approaching when he was to quit his Irish 
home for ever. 

One of his relatives, a certain Dean Gold- 
smith of Cloyne, whose remarks were regarded 
in the family as oracular, occasionally visited 
Mr. Contarine, and this gentleman, struck by 
something that dropped from his young kinsman, 
was pleased to declare that he " would make an 
excellent medical man." This deliverance being 
considered decisive, another purse was contrib- 
uted by Oliver's uncle, brother, and sister, and 
in the autumn of 17^2 he set out once more to 
seek his elusive fortune. Upon this occasion 
he reached his destination, which was Edin- 
burgh. His arrival there was nevertheless 
distinguished by a characteristic adventure. 
Having engaged a lodging, he set out at once 
to view the city, but having omitted to make any 
inquiries as to the name and locality of his new 
home, he was unable to find it again, and, but 
for an accidental meeting with the porter who 
had carried his baggage, must have begun his 
stay in Scotland with a fresh misfortune. 

On January 13, 17^3, he became a member of 
the Medical Society of Edinburgh, a voluntary 



28 Oliver Goldsmith 

association of the students, and he seems to have 
attended the lectures of Alexander Monro, the 
Professor of Anatomy, and of others. But the 
record of his social qualities, his tale-telling and 
his singing, is richer than the record of his 
studies. His first known piece of verse, exclu- 
sive of the iEsop couplet, is an epigram called 
"The Clown's Reply," dated "Edinburgh, 
1753"; and one or two of his letters to his 
friends have survived. He was not a willing 
letter-writer. " An hereditary indolence (I have 
it from the mother's side) has hitherto prevented 
my writing to you," he says to Bob Bryanton, 
" and still prevents my writing at least twenty- 
five letters more, due to my friends in Ireland. 
No turnspit-dog gets up into his wheel with 
more reluctance than I sit down to write ; yet 
no dog ever loved the roast meat he turns better 
than I do him I now address."-^ But already 
he exhibits that delightful narrative ease which 
distinguishes '' The Citizen of the World," 
from which the following, with its glimpse of 
the fair and hapless Duchess of Hamilton, once 
Miss Elizabeth Gunning, might be an extract : — 

" We have no such character here as a 
coquet, but alas I how many envious prudes I 

^ Prior's Z^ife, 1837, i, 139-140. 



A Memoir 29 

Some days ago, I walked into my Lord Kil- 
coubry's [Kirkcudbright's] (don't be surprised, 
my lord is but a glover ^) when the Duchess of 
Hamilton (that fair who sacrificed her beauty to 
her ambition, and her inward peace to a title 
and gilt equipage) passed by in her chariot ; her 
battered husband, or more properly, the guardian 
of her charms, sat by her side. Straight envy 
began, in the shape of no less than three ladies 
who sat with me, to find faults in her faultless 
form. * For my part,' says the first, ' I think, 
what I always thought, that the Duchess has too 
much of the red in her complexion.' ' Madam, 
I am of your opinion,' says the second ; ' I think 
her face has a palish cast, too much on the 
delicate order.' * And let me tell you,' added 
the third lady, whose mouth was puckered up 
to the size of an issue, ' that the Duchess has 
fine lips, but she wants a mouth.' At this every 
lady drew up her mouth as ifgoing to pronounce 
the letter P."^ 

One wonders whether Dickens recalled this 
passage, when he drew that delightful mistress 

1 " William Maclellan," says Prior, " who claimed the 
title, and whose son succeeded in establishing the claim 
in 1773." 

2 Prior's Li/g, 1837, i, 143-4. 



30 Oliver Goldsmith 

of the proprieties, who expatiated upon the 
inestimable advantages to the feminine lips of 
habitually pronouncing such words as " prunes " 
and "prism." In two more letters Goldsmith 
writes affectionately to his Uncle Contarine of 
his professors and occupations, of a month's tour 
in the Highlands on a horse " of about the size 
of a ram," and so forth. But he is already rest- 
lessly meditating another move, — he proposes 
to go to Leyden to attend the lectures of Albinus. 
From the latter of these two epistles, his uncle's 
consent has been obtained, and he is preparing to 
start, not for Leyden but for Paris, " where the 
great Mr. Farhein, Petit, and Du Hamel du 
Monceau instruct their pupils in all the branches 
of medicine." " They speak French " [i. e., in 
contradistinction to the Latin of other conti- 
nental professors], he goes on, '' and conse- 
quently I shall have much the advantage of 
most of my countrymen, as I am perfectly ac- 
quainted with that language, and few who leave 
Ireland are so." '^ From another passage in this 
letter, he would seem to have been for some time 
an inmate of, or rather visitor at, the Duke of 
Hamilton's house, but the allusion is obscure. 

With these letters, and what of instruction 
may be extracted from a set of tailor's bills re- 
1 Prior's Life, 1837, i, 155. 



A Memoir 31 

covered by Foster, which show that '' Mr. Oliver 
Goldsmith, Student," was helping to confirm the 
Elphin story of the red breeches by indulging in 
such "peacock's feathers" as "silver Hatt- 
Lace," "rich Sky-Blew sattin/' "Genoa vel- 
vett," and " best sfine high Clarett-colour'd 
Cloth " at 19s. a yard,^ the record of his stay 
in the Scottish capital, as far as it can be 
chronicled in these pages, comes to an end. 
But he was not to quit the country, nor indeed 
to leave Edinburgh^ without further adventures. 
His departure, according to the Percy Memoir, 
was all but prevented by his arrest for a debt 
contracted as surety for a friend. From this 
bondage, however, he was released by two 
college associates, Mr. Lauchlan Macleane 
and Dr. Sleigh. His subsequent experiences 
must be related in his own words to his Uncle 
Contarine, written from " Madame Diallion's, 
at Leyden," a few weeks later. "Sometime 
after the receipt of your last," he says, " I em- 
barked for Bourdeaux, on board a Scotch ship 
called the St. Andrews, Capt. John Wall, master. 
The ship made a tolerable appearance, and as 
another inducement, I was let to know that six 
agreeable passengers were to be in my company. 
Well, we were but two days at sea when a 

1 Forster's Life, 1877, i, 52. 



32 Oliver Goldsmith 

storm drove us into a city of England called 
Newcastle-upon-Tyne. We all went a-shore 
to refresh us after the fatigue of our voyage. 
Seven men and I were one day on shore, 
and on the following evening as we were all 
very merry, the room door bursts open : enters a 
Serjeant and twelve grenadiers with their bayo- 
nets screwed : and puts us all under the King's 
arrest. It seems my company were Scotchmen 
in the French service, and had been in Scotland 
to enlist soldiers for the French army. I en- 
deavoured all I could to prove my innocence ; 
however, I remained in prison with the rest a 
fortnight, and with difficulty got off even then. 
Dear Sir, keep all this a secret, or at least say it 
was for debt ; for if it were once known at the 
university, I should hardly get a degree. But 
hear how Providence interposed in my favour : 
the ship was gone on to Bourdeaux before I got 
from prison, and was wrecked at the mouth of 
the Garonne, and every one of the crew were 
drowned. It happened the last great storm. 
There was a ship at that time ready for Holland : 
I embarked, and in nine days, thank my God, 
I arrived safe at Rotterdam ; whence I travelled 
by land to Leyden ; and whence I now write." ^ 
As usual, a certain allowance must be made in 
1 Miscellaneous Works, 1801, i, z^-S. 



A Memoir 33 

this account for picturesque decoration. In the 
remainder of the letter he touches humourously 
on the contrast between the Dutch about him 
and the Scotch he has just left ; describes the 
phlegmatic pleasures of the country, the ice- 
boats, and the delights of canal travelling. 
" They sail in covered boats drawn by horses," 
he says; "and in these you are sure to meet 
people of all nations. Here the Dutch slumber, 
the French chatter, and the English play at cards. 
Any man who likes company may have them to 
his taste. For my part, I generally detached 
myself from all society, and was wholly taken up 
in observing the face of the country. Nothing 
can equal its beauty ; wherever I turn my eye, 
fine houses, elegant gardens, statues, grottos, 
vistas presented themselves ; but when you enter 
their towns you are charmed beyond descrip- 
tion. No misery is to be seen here; every one 
is usefully employed." ^ Already, it is plain, he 
was insensibly storing up material for the subse- 
quent '' Traveller." 

But the actual occurrences of his life are, for 
the moment, more urgent than his impressions of 
Holland. Little is known, in the way of fact, 
as to his residence at Leyden. Gaubius, the 
professor of chemistry, is indeed mentioned in 
^ Miscellaneous Works^ l8oi, i, 31. 
3 



34 Oliver Goldsmith 

one of his works ; but it would be too much to 
conclude an intimacy from a chance reference. 
From the account of a fellow-countryman, Dr. 
Ellis, then a student like himself, he was, as 
always, frequently pressed for money, often 
supporting himself by teaching his native lan- 
guage, and now and then, in the hope of recruit- 
ing his finances, resorting to the gaming-table. 
On one occasion, according to this informant, 
he had a successful run ; but, disregarding the 
advice of his friend to hold his hand, he lost his 
gains almost immediately. By and by the old 
restless longing to see foreign countries, prob- 
ably dating from the days when he was a pupil 
under Thomas Byrne, came back with redoubled 
force. The recent death of the Danish savant 
and playwright, Baron de Holberg, who in his 
youth had made the tour of Europe on foot, 
probably suggested the way ; and equipped with 
a small loan from Dr. Ellis, he determined to 
leave Leyden. Unhappily, in passing a florist's, 
he saw some rare bulbs, which he straightway 
transmitted to his Uncle Contarine. His imme- 
diate resources being thus disposed of, he quitted 
Leyden in February, 17^5, '' with only one clean 
shirt, and no money in his pocket." ^ 

His exact itinerary, once given verbally to Dr. 

1 Miscellaneous Works, 1801, i, 34. 



A Memoir 35 

Percy, is now undiscoverable. No letters of 
this date are known to exist. That he travelled 
on foot is clear. " Hand inexpertus loquor,'' he 
said later, when praising this method of locomo- 
tion ; "and Cook, who wrote of him in The 
European Magazine for 1793, says he would 
often "with great pleasantry," speak "of his 
distresses on the Continent, such as living on 
the hospitalities of the friars in convents, sleep- 
ing in barns, and picking up a kind of mendicant 
livelihood by the German flute." " I had some 
knowledge of music " — says George Primrose 
in the " Vicar" — " with a tolerable voice, and 
now turned what was once my amusement into 
a present means of bare subsistence. I passed 
among the harmless peasants of Flanders, and 
among such of the French as are poor enough to 
be very merry ; for I ever found them sprightly 
in proportion to their wants. Whenever I ap- 
proached a peasant's house towards nightfall, I 
played one of my most merry tunes, and that 
procured me not only a lodging, but subsistence 
for the next day. I once or twice attempted to 
play for people of fashion ; but they still thought 
my performance odious, and never rewarded me 
even with a trifle."^ For George Primrose we 
may read Oliver Goldsmith. ^ 

1 Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, ii, 24-5. 



36 Oliver Goldsmith 

Louvain seems to have been his first tarrying 
place ; and here, tradition affirms, he obtained 
that '^ authority to slay," the degree of M.B., 
later appended to his name. But the records of 
the University of Louvain were lost in the v^^ars 
of the Revolution, and the statement cannot be 
verified. There are indications of his having 
been at Antwerp, at Brussels, and at Maestricht. 
His musical performances in France have already 
been referred to. At Paris he attended the 
chemical lectures of Lavoisier's master, the 
famous Guillaume-Franpois Rouelle, for, in the 
" Polite Learning," he expressly speaks of the 
number of ladies in the audience.-^ His means 
of subsistence at this time are involved in ob- 
scurity. It has been asserted, although direct 
evidence is wanting, that he acted as tutor or 
governor to an exceedingly miserly young man 
of the middle classes ; and there are passages in 
George Primrose's after-experiences, which lend 
colour to such a view. '* I was to be the young 
gentleman's governor, with this injunction, that 
he should always be permitted to direct him- 
self. My pupil in fact understood the art of 
guiding in money concerns much better than me. 
He was heir to a fortune of about two hundred 
thousand pounds, left him by an uncle in the 
1 An Enquiry, etc., 1759, p. 103. 



A Memoir 37 

West Indies ; and his guardians, to qualify him 
for the management of it, had bound him ap- 
prentice to an attorney. Thus avarice was his 
prevailing passion : all his questions on the road 
were how much money could be saved. . . . Such 
curiosities on the way as could be seen for noth- 
ing, he was ready enough to look at ; but if the 
sight was to be paid for, he usually asserted that 
he had been told it was not worth seeing. He 
never paid a bill, that he would not observe, 
how amazingly expensive travelling was." ^ But 
whether this is autobiographical, or not, Gold- 
smith must, in some way or other, have procured 
money, since without it, he could not have gone 
to the play, and seen the famous Mdlle. Clairon, 
of whom he afterwards wrote so sympathetically 
in The Bee. From the French capital he passed 
to Germany; thence to Switzerland. It is at 
Geneva — at Voltaire's recently purchased resi- 
dence of ^' Les Ddices " — that Mr. Forster 
conjecturally places an incident which Gold- 
smith afterwards described in his memoirs of the 
philosopher of Ferney. ' ' The person who writes 
this Memoir," he says, '* who had the honour and 
pleasure of being his [Voltaire's] acquaintance, 
remembers to have seen him in a select company 
of wits of both sexes at Paris, when the subject 
1 Vicar of Wakefieldy 1766, ii, 29, 30. 



38 Oliver Goldsmith 

happened to turn upon English taste and learn- 
ing. Fontenelie, who was of the party, and 
who being unacquainted with the language or 
authors of the country he undertook to condemn, 
with a spirit truly vulgar began to revile both. 
Diderot, who liked the English, and knew some- 
thing of their literary pretensions, attempted to 
vindicate their poetry and learning, but with un- 
equal abilities. The company quickly perceived 
that Fontenelie was superior in the dispute, and 
were surprised at the silence which Voltaire had 
preserved all the former part of the night, par- 
ticularly as the conversation happened to turn 
upon one of his favourite topics. Fontenelie 
continued his triumph till about twelve o'clock, 
when Voltaire appeared at last roused from his 
reverie. His whole frame seemed animated. 
He began his defence with the utmost elegance 
mixed with spirit, and now and then let fall the 
finest strokes of raillery upon his antagonist ; 
and his harangue lasted till three in the morning. 
I must confess that, whether from national par- 
tiality, or from the elegant sensibility of his man- 
ner, I never was so much charmed, nor did I ever 
remember so absolute a victory as he gained in 
this dispute." ^ Goldsmith, it will be seen, places 
this occurrence at Paris, and, as one of his later 
1 Gibbs's Goldsmith's Works, 1885, iv, 24, 25. 



A Memoir 39 

editors, Mr. Gibbs, pertinently enough points 
out, the transference of the scene to " Les 
D61ices " involves the not very explicable pres- 
ence in Switzerland of Diderot and Fontenelle, 
to say nothing of the " select company of wits 
of both sexes." But these discrepancies, due 
to haste, to confusion, or perhaps to the habit, 
already referred to, of "loading" his narrative, 
do not make it necessary to conclude that Gold- 
smith had not seen and heard Voltaire. 

In Switzerland Goldsmith remained some time, 
chiefly at Geneva, visiting from thence Basle, 
Berne, and other places. He speaks, in the 
" Animated Nature," of woodcocks flushed on 
Mount Jura, of a frozen cataract seen at Schaff- 
hausen, of a "very savoury dinner " eaten on the 
Alps. Later, he passed into Piedmont, and 
makes reference to its floating bee-houses. 
Florence, Verona, Mantua, Milan, Venice, 
were next journeyed to, and Padua, for which 
city is also claimed the credit of his medical 
degree.-^ In Italy, where every peasant was a 
musician, his flute had lost its charm, and he 
seems to have subsisted, if we again accept him 
as the prototype of George Primrose, chiefly by 
disputation. " In all the foreign universities 

1 It is now known that he did not obtain it there 
{Aihenceum, 21 July, 1894). 



40 Oliver Goldsmith 

and convents, there are upon certain days philo- 
sophical theses maintained against every adven- 
titious disputant ; for which, if the champion 
opposes with any dexterity, he can claim a gratu- 
ity in money, a dinner, and a bed for one night." -^ 
Thus he fought his way from city to city until, 
at the end of 1755, he turned his steps home- 
wards. On the I St of February, 1756, he landed 
at Dover, *' his whole stock of cash," says Wil- 
liam Glover, "amounting to no more than a few 
half-pence."^ His wanderings had occupied 
exactly one year." 

1 Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, ii, 31. 

2 Life prefixed to Poems and Flays, ITJT, p. iv. This 
Life is based upon " Anecdotes of the late Dr. Goldsmith/* 
Annual Register, 1774, pp. 29-34, by " G." 



CHAPTER III 

Prospect and retrospect; first struggles on reaching England; 
comedian, apothecary's journeyman, poor physician, press- 
corrector to Richardson; writes a tragedy; projects of East- 
ern exploration; assistant at PecJcham Academy; miseries of 
an usher ; Peckham memories ; bound to Griffiths the book- 
seller, April, 1757; literature of all work; criticism of Gray; 
quarrels with Griffiths; "Memoirs of a Protestant" pub- 
lished, February, 1758; returns to Peckham; new hopes; 
meditating "Enquiry into Polite Learning;" letters to Mills, 
Bryanton, Mrs. Lawder (Jane Contarine) ; obtains and loses 
appointment as medical officer at Coromandel ; rejected at 
Surgeons' Hall as a hospital mate, December 21, 1758. 

A T the time of Goldsmith's second arrival in 
•^"^ England, for, as will be remembered, he 
had already paid an unpremeditated visit to 
Newcastle a year earlier, his previous career 
could certainly not be described as a success. 
If his schooldays had been but moderately prom- 
ising, his college life might almost be called 
discreditable. He had tried many things and 
failed. He had estranged his sole remaining 
parent ; he had sorely taxed the patience of the 
rest of his relations ; and he had, latterly, been 
living as a wanderer on the face of the earth. 



42 Oliver Goldsmith 

This was his record in the past. And yet, read 
by the light of his subsequent story, he had un- 
consciously gone through a course of training, 
and accumulated a stock of experience, of which 
little or nothing was to be lost. He had looked 
at sorrow close, and learned to sympathise with 
poverty ; he had known men and cities ; he had 
studied character in its undress. If he had prof- 
ited but slenderly by the precepts of Gaubius 
and Albinus, his " education through the senses" 
had been progressing as silently and as surely as 
the fame of Marcellus. What he had seen of 
foreign countries was to stand him in good stead 
in his first long poem ; what he had collected 
concerning professors and academies he would 
weave into the " Enquiry into Polite Learning 
in Europe " ; what he had observed in the byway 
and the crowd would supply him with endless 
touches of shrewd and delicate discrimination in 
his *' Essays" and his *' Citizen of the World." 
And somehow, he had already, as his letters 
testify, acquired that easy and perspicuous style 
of writing, which comes to few men as a gift. 
Who shall say, then, that his life had been a fail- 
ure, when, in its assimilative period, so much had 
been achieved? Meanwhile, he had landed at 
Dover, and the world was all before him where 
to choose. 



A Memoir 43 

The close connection between his works and 
his biography, added to the habit of regarding 
the adventures of his " Philosophic Vagabond " 
as an exact transcript of his own experiences, 
has occasionally led to the including, in that 
biography, of some incidents which may have 
no other basis than his fictions. Thus, either 
from his subsequent account, in The British 
Magazine, of the vicissitudes of a strolling 
player, or from the theatrical attempts of George 
Primrose in the " Vicar," it has been asserted 
that his first endeavour at what he somewhere 
calls "his sole ambition, a livelihood," was as 
a low comedian in a barn — an assertion which 
has been thought to receive some slender con- 
firmation from the fact that he is known to have 
expressed a desire in later life to play the part 
of " Scrub " in Farquhar's " Beaux' Stratagem." 
Another vaguely reported story represents him 
as engaged for some time as usher at a provin- 
cial school, under a feigned name : and that his 
difficulties, during this period, were extreme, 
may be gathered from the oft-quoted, but per- 
haps humourously-exaggerated, announcement, 
attributed to him in his more prosperous days, 
that he had once lived "among the beggars in 
Axe-Lane." In any case he must have been 
sorely pressed, and depressed. " I was without 



44 Oliver Goldsmith 

friends, recommendations, money, or impu- 
dence," he says to his brother-in-law Hodson, 
writing of this time; ** and that in a country 
where being born an Irishman was sufficient to 
keep me unemployed. Many in such circum- 
stances would have had recourse to the friar's 
cord, or the suicide's halter. But, with all my 
follies, I had principle to resist the one, and 
resolution to combat the other." ^ His first 
definite employment seems to have been that of 
assistant to an apothecary named Jacob on 
Fish Street Hill, who had been attracted by his 
chemical knowledge, and pitied his forlorn con- 
dition. While he was acting in this capacity, 
he heard that his quondam college friend. Dr. 
Sleigh, already referred to in chapter ii., was in 
London, and he accordingly sought him out. 
*' Notwithstanding it was Sunday," said poor 
Goldsmith to Cook, " and it is to be supposed 
in my best clothes. Sleigh scarcely knew me — 
such is the tax the unfortunate pay to poverty — 
however, when he did recollect me, I found his 
heart as warm as ever, and he shared his purse 
and friendship with me during his continuance 
in London." 

By the kindness of Dr. Sleigh, and some 
others friends, he was freed from the pestle and 

1 Miscellaneous Works, 1801, i, 41. 



A Memoir 45 

mortar, and established himself as *'a physician 
in a humble way" in Bankside, Southwark, 
where, if anywhere, he must have made the 
acquaintance of that worshipful Madame Blaize, 
whom, three years later, he celebrated in The 
Bee. " Kent Street," he sings — 

" well may say 
That had she lived a twelvemonth more 
She had not died to-day ; " 

and Kent Street, then sacred to beggars and 
broom men, traverses Southwark.^ His old 
schoolmate, Beatty, who saw him about this 
time, described him as conventionally costumed 
in tarnished green and gold, but with a " shirt 
and neckcloth which appeared to have been 
worn at least a fortnight. He said he was prac- 
tising physic, and doing very well."^ Another 
story, told or repeated by Reynolds, also relates 
to the — in Goldsmith's life — always important 
item of attire. " In conformity to the prevail- 
ing garb of the day for physicians," says Prior, 
" Goldsmith, unable probably to obtain a new, 
had procured a second-hand, velvet coat ; but 
either from being deceived in the bargain or by 
subsequent accident, a considerable breach in 
the left breast was obliged to be repaired by 

1 It is now called Tabard Street 

2 Prior's Life, 1837, i, 215. 



46 Oliver Goldsmith 

the introduction of a new piece. This had not 
been so neatly done, as not to be apparent to 
the close observation of his acquaintance, and 
such persons as he visited in the capacity of 
medical attendant : willing, therefore, to con- 
ceal what is considered too obvious a symp- 
tom of poverty, he was accustomed to place 
his hat over the patch, and retain it there 
carefully during the visit; but this constant posi- 
tion becoming noticed, and the cause being 
soon known, occasioned no little merriment at 
his expense." ^ 

His statement to Beatty, quoted above, that 
he was prospering, was, in all probability, what 
he himself would have described as " a bounce." 
His patients were of the poorest class, and the 
neighbourhood in which he '^practised physic" 
one of the least opulent in London. Hence he 
soon drifted into new employment. Rumour 
affirms that, through one of his humble patients, 
a working printer, he made the acquaintance of 
the author of " Clarissa," Samuel Richardson, 
whose shop was in Salisbary Court, and that he 
acted for him as corrector to the press. This 
quasi-literary occupation must have revived or 
stimulated his leaning to authorship ; for when, 
about this time, he called upon another Edin- 
1 Prior's Life, 1837, i, 215-6. 



A Memoir 47 

burgh acquaintance, he had exchanged his tar- 
nished gold and green for "a rusty full-trimmed 
black suit," the pockets of which were crammed 
with papers, suggesting " the poet in Garrick's 
farce of ' Lethe.' " To complete the resem- 
blance, he speedily produced a tragedy, which 
he insisted upon reading, hastily blotting out 
everything to which his listener offered the 
faintest objection. At last he let out that he 
had already submitted it to Richardson, upon 
which his friend, doubtful of his own critical 
abilities, and alarmed for the possible fate of a 
masterpiece, " peremptorily declined offering 
another criticism upon the performance," the 
very name and subject of which have perished, 
like those of the comedy Steele burned at 
Oxford in deference to the objections of Mr. 
Parker. As usual, Goldsmith was brimful of 
projects, one of which was to start there and 
then for the East in order to decipher the in- 
scriptions on the Wady Mekatteb and the 
Djebal Serbal. For this a salary of ;^300 per 
annum had been left by an enthusiast ; and 
nothing was needful but the knowledge of 
Arabic — a mere '^unconsidered trifle" that 
could easily be picked up on the road. 
The famous " Written Mountains," how- 

1 Prior's Life, 1837, i, 212-3. 



48 Oliver Goldsmith 

ever, were not to be his destination. Another 
of his old Edinburgh class-fellows — and it is 
noteworthy that there were so many who seem 
to have remembered and befriended him — was 
the son of Dr. Milner, a Presbysterian minister 
and schoolmaster at Peckham. Dr. Milner 
was in failing health, and his son suggested that 
Goldsmith should, for the time, act as his 
assistant. Whether the sarcastic comments 
upon the miseries of an usher's position, to 
which he gives vent in The Bee, the " Vicar," 
and elsewhere, are referable to this period, 
or to some less fortunate experiences, is still 
unchronicled. But there is certainly a touch 
of something more than a merely dramatic 
utterance in the phrases of George Primrose : 
'' I have been an usher at a boarding-school 
myself ; and may I die by an anodyne necklace, ^ 
but I had rather be an under turnkey in New- 
gate. I was up early and late : I was brow- 
beat by the master, hated for my ugly face by 
the mistress, worried by the boys within, and 
never permitted to stir out to meet civility 
abroad."^ "Every trick," he says again in 

1 That is, by a halter, for which, by extension, the 
name of the old quack remedy for the pains of teething 
was employed. 

2 p-'icar of Wakefield, 1766, ii, 3-4. 



A Memoir 49 

No. vi. of Thz Bee, " is played upon the usher ; 
the oddity of his manners,, his dress, or his lan- 
guage, are [is] a fund of eternal ridicule ; the 
master himself now and then cannot avoid join- 
ing in the laugh, and the poor wretch, eternally 
resenting this ill-usage, seems to live in a state 
of war with all the family." At other times, 
says the " Percy Memoir," he would describe 
the malodorous privileges of sleeping in the 
same bed with the French teacher, who spends 
" every night an hour perhaps in papering and 
filleting his hair, and stinks worse than a carrion, 
with his rancid pomatums, when he lays his head 
beside him on his bolster." ^ But if these indig- 
nities lingered in his mind, (and the passages in 
The Bee must have been written very shortly 
after his Peckham experiences), he can have 
discovered little of his annoyance to those about 
him, who seem to have recollected him chiefly by 
his improvidence, — a characteristic so manifest 
that Mrs. Milner is said to have suggested that 
she should take care of his money like that 
of the young gentlemen, — his good-nature, his 
cheerfulness, his playing upon the flute to his 
pupils, and his practical jokes upon William the 
foot-boy. Such, at all events, is the impression 
left by the reminiscences of the last of the ten 

1 Miscellaneous Works^ i8oi, i, 39. 
4 



50 Oliver Goldsmith 

Miss Milners who survived until the close of 
the century to enlighten curious inquirers con- 
cerning her father's famous assistant. The 
limits of this volume do not permit the reproduc- 
tion of Goldsmith's tricks upon the unsuspecting 
William, who must certainly have been a gull of 
the first order ; but two incidents of these 
days may be recorded, because they illustrate 
the permanent side of Goldsmith's nature. 
According to tradition, it occurred to Miss 
Hester Milner who, it must be remembered, 
was the daughter of a minister, to inquire what 
particular commentator on the Scriptures he 
would recommend, upon which he replied, after 
a pause, and with much earnestness, that in his 
belief the best commentator was common-sense. 
The other anecdote, which Prior derived from 
the son of one of the boys who was present, is 
allied to those earlier ones which exhibit his char- 
acter in its more vulnerable aspect. Playing the 
flute one day to his pupils, he paused for a mo- 
ment to expatiate upon the advantages of music 
as a gentlemanlike acquirement. " A pert boy, 
looking at his situation and personal disadvan- 
tages with something of contempt, rudely replied 
to the effect that he surely could not consider 
himself a gentleman ; an offence which, though 
followed by instant chastisement, disconcerted 



A Memoir 51 

and pained him extremely." ^ It was probably 
owing to slights of this kind that, although he 
left so satisfactory an impression behind him, he 
always looked back to the days of this servitude 
with unusual bitterness. He would talk freely 
of his distresses and difficulties. Cook tells us, 
but he always carefully avoided the " little story 
of Peckham school." 

His stay there, however, can have been but 
brief. Miss Milner, indeed, talked of a three 
years' residence ; but, if Forster be right in fix- 
ing his entry upon his duties at " about the 
beginning of 17^7," it could scarcely have ex- 
ceeded three months, as it is possible to fix 
definitely the termination of the engagement. 
Dr. Milner was a dabbler in literature, and a 
contributor to The Monthly Review^ which, a 
few years earlier, had been established by 
Griffiths the bookseller. Griffiths was thus an 
occasional visitor at Peckham, and, struck by 
some remark on the part of the usher, he called 
him aside and inquired whether he could furnish 
'' a few specimens of criticism." These, when 
prepared, were so satisfactory, that an agree- 
ment was entered into in April by which Gold- 
smith was to be released from Peckham, to 
have a fixed salary, — qualified indifferently by 

1 Prior's Life, 1S37, i, 21S-9. 



52 Oliver Goldsmith 

Percy as " handsome," by Prior as " adequate," 
and by Forster as "small," — and to prepare 
copy-of-all-work for his master's periodical. 

Griffiths' shop was in Paternoster Row — 
*' at the Sign of the Dunciad." Most of the 
mere paste-and-scissors work of the magazine 
was done by the bookseller himself, the criti- 
cisms being supplied by a staif which included 
several contemporary writers of minor rank. 
Ruffhead, who wrote a life of Pope, Kippis, of 
the " Biographia Britannica," James Grainger, 
afterwards the poet of '' The Sugar Cane,*' and 
Langhorne, one of the translators of Plutarch's 
*' Lives," were amongst these, to whose number 
Goldsmith must now be added. In Griffiths' 
copy of the review for this period, which once 
belonged to Richard Heber, his new assistant's 
articles were marked, so that it is possible to 
form some idea of the very miscellaneous nature 
of his duties. He reviewed the ^* Mythology 
and Poetry of the Celtes," by Mallet of 
Copenhagen ; he reviewed Home's " Douglas " 
and Burke " On the Sublime and Beautiful ; " 
he reviewed the new " History of England" 
by Smollett and tea-hating old Jonas Hanway's 
" Eight Days' Journey from Portsmouth 
to Kingston-upon-Thames." '* Letters from an 
Armenian in Ireland, to his Friends at Trebi- 



A Memoir 53 

sonde" — concerning which it is quite compe- 
tent for any one to assert that they suggested the 
subsequent " Citizen of the World/' were it not 
that such collections appear to have been in the 
air at the time — a translation of Cardinal Poli- 
gnac's "Anti-Lucretius," Wilkie's " Epigoniad," 
and the " Memoirs of Madame de Maintenon," 
are also among the heterogeneous list. One of 
the last of his efforts for the review was a notice 
of Gray's " Odes," which Dodsley had just 
published in a shilling quarto. It is interesting, 
because it shows how, in his long probation, his 
taste had gradually been formed. He admitted 
Gray's genius ; he admitted his exquisite verbal 
felicities ; but he regretted his remoteness, 
and his want of emotion, and he gave him the 
advice of Isocrates to his scholars, — to " study 
the people." Counsel from the back-parlour of 
the " Dunciad" to the cloistered precinct of 
Pembroke College was not likely to be much 
regarded, even if it reached that sanctuary of 
culture ; but the fact illustrates the difference 
between Gray and the writer of whom he was 
afterwards to say, " This man is a poet." 

Goldsmith's criticism of Gray appeared in 
Thz Monthly Review for September, 1757, and 
at this point his labours for Griffiths were inter- 
rupted. The reasons for this are obscure ; but 



54 Oliver Goldsmith 

incompatibility of temper may probably stand for 
all of them. It is not unlikely that Goldsmith's 
ways were too desultory and uncertain to suit 
an employer with confirmed business habits, 
and a low standard of literary excellence ; while 
Goldsmith, on his side, complained that the 
bookseller and his wife (who assisted him) not 
only denied him the requisite comforts, but 
edited and manipulated his articles, — always 
a thing intolerable to the possessor of an in- 
dividual style. Style, however, was little to 
honest Griffiths, who doubtless thought, not 
without some reason, that he knew better what 
he wanted than the unknown Peckham usher 
whom he had introduced into the world of let- 
ters. So Griffiths and his assistant dissolved 
their compact, the latter to live for the next few 
months, no one quite knows how, by miscel- 
laneous practice of the pen.^ His brother 
Charles, attracted from Ireland by some romanc- 
ing phrases in one of his elder's letters about 
his illustrious friends, visited him unexpectedly 
at the end of 17^7. To his disappointment, 

1 Mr. J. W. M. Gibbs (Goldsmith's "Works," Bell's 
edition, vol. v.) has discovered that some parts of " A His- 
tory of the Seven Years' War," hitherto supposed to have 
been written in 1761, were published in The Literary 
Magazine, 1757-8. 



A Memoir 55 

he found him in a squalid garret near Salisbury 
Square, and promptly recognising the improba- 
bility of help in this direction, vanished as 
suddenly as he came. 

But if there is uncertainty as to Goldsmith's 
general occupations at this time, there is one 
work upon which, either during his bondage in 
Paternoster Row, or immediately after, he must 
have been engaged. This was a translation of 
the remarkable Memoirs of Jean Marteilhe of 
Bergerac, which Griffiths and Dilly published 
in February, 17^8, under the title of " Memoirs 
of a Protestant Condemned to the Galleys of 
France, for His Religion." The book, it is 
true, " from prudential motives " now no longer 
very intelligible, bears the name of James 
Willington, an old class-fellow of Goldsmith at 
Trinity College. But Griffiths, according to 
Prior, acknowledged that the translator was 
Goldsmith himself.^ Indeed, it is not impos- 
sible that Goldsmith may have seen Marteilhe, 
who died at Cuylenberg as late as 1777, and, 
who, the preface expressly says, was, at the 
time of writing, " known to numbers, not only 
in Holland but London." Of late years the 

^ This is now established. See " Marteilhe's * Me- 
moirs,' " in the Miscellanies of the present author, 1898, 
pp. 306-25. 



56 Oliver Goldsmith 

Religious Tract Society has issued a some- 
what exacter version of this moving record, 
surely one of the most forcible pictures of the 
miseries ensuing upon the Revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes that has ever been penned, 
and not wholly undeserving the praise accorded 
to it by Michelet of seeming to have been 
'^written as if between earth and heaven." 
Nor, despite certain apologetic passages in the 
translator's preface, can it be held to be seri- 
ously deficient in romantic interest. The epi- 
sode of Goujon, the young cadet of the regiment 
of Aubesson, and the disastrous development 
of his love-story, might furnish ample material 
for one of Dumas' most stirring chapters. 

By the time, however, that the '^Memoirs 
of a Protestant" had appeared, Goldsmith had 
deserted his garret near Salisbury Square, and 
gone back to help Dr. Milner at Peckham. 
Here, at least, he found a home, added to 
which, his old master had promised to en- 
deavour to procure for him a medical appoint- 
ment in India. With a view to the necessary 
outfit, he seems to have set about what was to 
be his first original work, and his letters to his 
friends in Ireland, of which several written at 
this time were printed by Prior and Percy, 
are plainly prompted by the desire to obtain 



A Memoir 57 

subscribers. He is going to publish a book in 
London, he says to Edward Mills, ^' entitled 
An Essay on the Present State of Taste and 
Literature in Europe," and he goes on to beg 
him to circulate proposals for the same. To 
like effect he writes to Robert Bryanton, and 
to Jane Contarine, now Mrs. Lawder. These 
letters are excellent specimens of his epistolary 
gift. All written within a few days of each 
other, they are skilfully discriminate in their 
variation of style. To Mills, who, by the way, 
never answered his appeal, he is most formal ; 
he is addressing the rich relation, the well-to-do 
** squireen," who had patronised him at college. 
*M have often," he says, "let my fancy loose 
when you were the subject, and have imagined 
you gracing the bench, or thundering at the 
bar; while I have taken no small pride to myself, 
and whispered all that I could come near, that 
this was my cousin. Instead of this, it seems 
you are contented to be merely an happy man ; 
to be esteemed only by your acquaintance — to 
cultivate your paternal acres — to take unmo- 
lested a nap under one of your own hawthorns, 
or in Mrs. Mills' bed-chamber, which, even a 
poet must confess, is rather the most [more] 
comfortable place of the two."^ Already, it 
1 Miscellaneous Works, 1801, i, 50-i. 



58 Oliver Goldsmith 

will be seen, he speaks of himself as a " poet." 
To Bryanton he writes with the freedom of an 
ancient boon companion at the Three Pigeons, 
runs over their old experiences, deplores their 
enforced separation, and draws a half-humourous, 
half-bitter picture of his own neglected merits. 
" There will come a day," he says, " no doubt 
it will — I beg you may live a couple of hundred 
years longer only to see the day — when the 
Scaligers and Daciers will vindicate my charac- 
ter, give learned editions of my labours, and 
bless the times with copious comments on the 
text. You shall see how they will fish up the 
heavy scoundrels who disregard me now, or will 
then offer to cavil at my productions. How 
will they bewail the time that suffered so much 
genius to be neglected. If ever my works find 
theirwayto Tartary or China, I know the conse- 
quence. Suppose one of your Chinese Owano- 
witzers instructing one of your Tartarian 
Chianobacchi — you see I use Chinese names to 
show my own erudition, as I shall soon make our 
Chinese talk like an Englishman to show his. 
This may be the subject of the lecture : — 

" ' Oliver Goldsmith flourished in the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He lived 
to be an hundred and three years old, [and in 



A Memoir 59 

that] age may justly be styled the sun of [litera- 
ture] and the Confucius of Europe. [Many of 
his earlier writings to the regret of the] learned 
world were anonymous, and have probably been 
lost, because united with those of others. The 
first avowed piece the world has of his is en- 
titled an " Essay on the Present State of Taste 
and Literature in Europe," — a work well worth 
its weight in diamonds. In this he profoundly 
explains what learning is, and what learning 
is not. In this he proves that blockheads are 
not men of wit, and yet that men of wit are 
actually blockheads.'" 

And then — not " to tire his Chinese Philoso- 
pher," of whom, two or three years hence, we 
shall hear more in The Public Ledger — he 
" lights down, as the boys say, to see himself on 
horse-back," and where is he ? " Here in a 
garret writing for bread, and expecting to be 
dunned for a milk-score."^ 

The letter to Mrs Lawder — Cousin Con. of 
the harpsichords — is in a different strain from 
the two others. Half playful, half respectful, it 
is at the same time more personal and confiden- 

1 Prior's Life, 1837, i, 266-7. The words between 
square brackets were supplied by Prior, the original 
manuscript being, in these places, worn by age. 



6o Oliver Goldsmith 

tial. After explaining his long silence by his 
fears that his letters might be attributed to 
wrong motives — that is to say, to petitions for 
money — he goes on : — 

" Those who know me at all, know that I 
have always been actuated by different principles 
from the rest of Mankind, and while none 
regarded the interests of his friends more, no 
man on earth regarded his own less. I have 
often affected bluntness to avoid the imputation 
of flattery, have frequently seem'd to overlook 
those merits, too obvious to escape notice, and 
pretended disregard to those instances of good 
nature and good sense which I could not fail 
tacitly to applaud ; and all this lest I should be 
rank'd among the grinning tribe who say very 
true to all that is said, who fill a vacant chair at a 
tea table whose narrow souls never moved in a 
wider circle than the circumference of a guinea, 
and who had rather be reckoning the money in 
your pocket than the virtues of your breast ; all 
this, I say, I have done and a thousand other 
very silly tho' very disinterested things in my 
time, and for all which no soul cares a farthing 
about me. . . . Madam, is it to be wondered 
that he should once in his life forget you who 
has been all his life forgetting himself? 



A Memoir 6i 

** However it is probable you may one of 
these days see me turn'd into a perfect Hunks 
and as dark and intricate as a mouse-hole. I 
have already given my Lanlady orders for an 
entire reform in the state of my finances ; I 
declaim against hot suppers, drink less sugar in 
my tea, and cheek my grate with brick-bats. 
Instead of hanging my room with pictures I in- 
tend to adorn it with maxims of frugality, these 
will make pretty furniture enough, and won't be 
a bit too expensive ; for I shall draw them all 
out with my own hands and my lanlady's 
daughter shall frame them with the parings of 
my black waistcoat ; Each maxim is to be in- 
scribed on a sheet of clean paper and wrote with 
my best pen, of which the following will serve 
as a specimen. * Look Sharp. Mind the mean 
chance. Money is money now. If you have a 
thousand pounds you can put your hands by 
your sides and say you are worth a thousand 
pounds every day of the year. Take a farthing 
from an hundred pound and it will be an hun- 
dred pound no longer.' Thus which way so ever 
I turn my eyes they are sure to meet one of 
those friendly Monitors, and as we are told of 
an Actor ^ who hung his room round with look- 

^ /. ^., Thomas Sheridan, the father of the author of 
« The School for Scandal." 



62 Oliver Goldsmith 

ing-glasses to correct the defects of his person, 
my appartment shall be furnishd in a peculiar 
manner to correct the errors of my mind. 

''Faith, Madam, I heartily wish to be rich, 
if it were only for this reason, to say without a 
blush how much I esteem you, but alass I have 
many a fatigue to encounter before that happy 
time comes ; when your poor old simple friend 
may again give a loose to the luxuriance of his 
nature, sitting by Kilmore fireside recount the 
various adventures of an hard fought life, laugh 
over the follies of the day, join his flute to your 
harpsicord and forget that ever he starved in 
those streets where Butler and Otway starved 
before him." ^ ^ 

And so, with a pathetic reference to his kind 
Uncle Contarine, now lapsed into "second 
childishness and mere oblivion," he winds into 
the business of his letter — the solicitation of 
subscriptions for the forthcoming book. 

Three months after the date of this epistle the 
long-desired appointment has come, and he 
describes it to his brother-in-law Hodson. He 
is going in quality of physician and surgeon to a 
factory on the Coast of Coromandel. The 

^ This extract is printed textually from zfacsi?nile of 
the original letter in Griffin's " Works of Oliver Gold- 
smith," 1858. 



A Memoir 6:^ 

Company have signed the warrant, which has 
already cost £io, and there will be other 
heavy expenses for passage and outfit. The 
salary of ;^ioo, it is true, is only trifling. Still 
the practice of the place (if he is rightly in- 
formed), " generally amounts to not less than 
;^i,ooo per annum, for which the appointed 
physician has an exclusive privilege." An East 
India exile, however, was not to be his fate. 
Why the project, with its executed warrant, and 
boundless potentialities, came to nothing, his 
biographers have failed to discover, nor did he 
himself ever reveal the reason. But in the 
absence of information upon this point, there is 
definite evidence upon another. In December 
of the same year, 1758, he presented himself at 
Surgeons' Hall to be examined for the humble 
office of hospital mate. The curt official record 
in the College books, first made public by Prior, ^ 
runs as follows: — 

" James Bernard, mate to an hospital. 
Oliver Goldsmith, found not qualified for 
ditto." 

1 Prior's Life, 1837, i, 282. 



CHAPTER IV 

Pen-portrait of Goldsmith in 1759 ; No. 12, Green Arbour Court, 
Old Bailey; difficulties with Griffiths; writing " Memoirs of 
Voltaire;" letter to Henry Goldsmith, February, 1759; visit 
from Dr. Percy, March; "Enquiry into Polite Learning" 
published, April 2 ; account of that book ; its reception ; con- 
tributions to The Busy Body, and The Lady''s Magazine ; 
The Bee, October to November; its reference to Johnson; 
mmor verse. 

T)Y this date Goldsmith had passed that crit- 
^ ical time of life, after which, according to 
a depressing French axiom, whose falsity he was 
to demonstrate, no man that has hitherto failed 
can hope to succeed. His thirtieth birthday had 
gone by. In a letter written not many weeks 
after the disaster which closed the foregoing 
chapter, he gives a description of his appear- 
ance at the beginning of 17^9. "Though I 
never had a day's sickness since I saw you, 
yet I am not that strong active man you once 
knew me. You scarcely can conceive how 
much eight years of disappointment, anguish, 
and study have worn me down. . . . Imagine 
to yourself a pale melancholy visage, with two 



A Memoir 65 

great wrinkles between the eye-brows, with an 
eye disgustingly severe, and a big wig; and 
you may have a perfect picture of my present 
appearance. ... I have passed my days among 
a parcel of cool designing beings, and have con- 
tracted all their suspicious manner in my own 
behaviour. I should actually be as unfit for the 
society of my friends at home, as I detest that 
which I am obliged to partake of here. ... I 
can neither laugh nor drink, have contracted 
an hesitating disagreeable manner of speaking, 
and a visage that looks ill-nature itself; in short, 
I have thought myself into a settled melancholy, 
and an utter disgust of all that life brings with 
it." ^ That this picture is strongly coloured 
by the depression of the moment is manifest. 
" Never," says Percy, commenting upon part 
of it, " was a character so unsuspicious and so 
unguarded as the writer's." ^ But the life he 
had led was not calculated to soften his manners 
or modify his physical disadvantages. 

About the end of 17^8, — and probably, as 
Mr. Forster conjectures, with part of the money 
he had received for some articles in The Critical 
Review of Griffiths' rival, Hamilton, — Gold- 
smith had moved from his Salisbury Square 

1 Miscellaneous Works, i8oi, i, 54-5. 

2 lb., p. 84, note. 

5 



66 Oliver Goldsmith 

garret into his now historic lodgings in Green 
Arbour Court. Green Arbour Court was a 
tiny square, which extended from the upper end 
of the Old Bailey into Sea-coal Lane, and was 
approached on that side by a steep flight of 
stone stairs (of which Ned Ward has chronicled 
the dangers) called Breakneck Steps. When 
Washington Irving visited it, before its demo- 
lition, he described it as a region of washer- 
women, consisting of "tall and miserable houses, 
the very intestines of which seemed turned in- 
side out, to judge from the old garments and 
frippery that fluttered from every window." ^ 
In The European Ma^a^m^ for January, 1803, 
the reader may see a contemporary print of the 
place, still to be identified on ancient maps of 
London. Goldsmith's room was on the first 
floor at No. 12; and here, solaced by the hu- 
mours of a friendly watchmaker, or recreating 
the ragged infantry of the neighbourhood with 
his flute, working busily in the daytime, and 
creeping out stealthily at nightfall, he made his 
home from 1758 until the end of 1760. 

The first months of his residence were signal- 
ised by one of those untoward incidents, which 
are always a difficulty to the hero-worshipping 
biographer. In order to make a decent appear- 

1 Oliver Goldsmith ; a Biography, 1844, pp. 115-6. 



A Memoir 67 

ance before the Court of Examiners at Surgeons* 
Hall, he had applied to Griffiths to become se- 
curity with a tailor for a suit of clothes, and, 
upon his promising to write four articles for 
The Monthly Review, Griffiths had consented. 
The reviews had been written, and the exam- 
ination had been undergone, with the result 
already recorded, when Goldsmith's landlord at 
Green Arbour Court was suddenly arrested for 
debt. To comfort his inconsolable wife, Gold- 
smith pledged the clothes. A few days later, 
under further pressure, the books he had re- 
viewed were transfered to a friend as security 
for a small loan ; and by ill luck, almost imme- 
diately afterwards, the irate Griffiths demanded 
restitution. Thereupon ensued a bitter and 
humiliating correspondence, the closing letter 
in which was printed by Mr. Forster from the 
original in his possession. 'It is a passionate 
outbreak on Goldsmith's part, in which he 
almost implores the bookseller to send him to 
prison. He has told him again and again, he 
can pay him nothing; but he will be punctual to 
any arrangement made. He is not a sharper (as 
Griffiths had evidently called him) ; had he been 
so, had he been possessed of less good nature 
and native generosity, he might surely now have 
been in better circumstances. " I am guilty, I 



6S Oliver Goldsmith 

own/' he says, *' of meannesses which poverty 
unavoidably brings with it, my reflections are 
filled with repentance for my imprudence, but 
not with any remorse for being a villain." The" 
volumes reviewed, which are merely in the cus- 
tody of a friend, shall be returned in a month. 
" At least spare invective 'till my book with Mr. 
Dodsley shall be published, and then perhaps 
you may see the bright side of a mind when my 
professions shall not appear the dictates of 
necessity but of choice." Thus, without let or 
break, in a hand trembling with agitation and 
wounded pride, the words hurry on to the post- 
script, " I shall expect impatiently the result of 
your resolutions." ^ The result seems to have 
been that Griffiths refrained from further pro- 
ceedings ; and the matter ended with an en- 
gagement on Goldsmith's part to prepare, for 
twenty pounds, from which the price of the 
clothes was to be deducted, a ^' Life of Vol- 
taire," to accompany a new translation of ^' The 
Henriade " by one of the bookseller's hacks. 

To this work, already quoted,^ he refers in the 
letter to Henry Goldsmith of February, 1759, 
containing the personal portrait with which the 
present chapter opens. After mentioning his 

1 Forster's Life, 1877, i, i6t. 

2 See anie, chapter ii. 



A Memoir d^ 

mother, who by this time has become almost 
blind, sending affectionate injunctions to Bob 
Bryanton not to drink, and making brotherly 
inquiries after his younger sister Jenny, who 
has married ill, he goes on: — 

"There is a book of mine will be published 
in a few days, the life of a very extraordinary 
man — no less than the great Voltaire. You 
know already by the title, that it is no more 
than a catch-penny. However I spent but four 
weeks on the whole performance, for which I 
received twenty pounds. When published, I 
shall take some means of conveying it to you, 
unless you may think it dear of [at] the post- 
age, which may amount to four or five shillings. 
However, I fear you will not find an equiva- 
lence of amusement. Your last letter, I repeat 
it, was too short ; you should have given me 
your opinion of the heroicomical poem which I 
sent you : you remember I intended to introduce 
the hero of the poem, as lying in a paltry ale- 
house. You may take the following specimen 
of the manner, which I flatter myself is quite 
original. This room in which he lies, may be 
described somewhat this way: — 

" ' The window, patch'd with paper, lent a ray, 
That feebly shew'd the state in which he lay. 



7© Oliver Goldsmith 

The sanded floor, that grits beneath the tread : 

The humid wall with paltry pictures spread; 

The game of goose was there exposed to view, 

And the twelve rules the royal martyr drew : 

The seasons fram'd with listing, found a place, 

And Prussia's monarch shew'd his lampblack face. 

The morn was cold ; he views with keen desire, 

A rusty grate unconscious of a fire. 

An unpaid reck'ning on the freeze was scor'd, 

And five crack'd tea-cups dress'd the chimney board/ 

** And now imagine after his soliloquy, the 
landlord to make his appearance, in order to 
dun him for the reckoning : — 

" * Not with that face, so servile and so gay. 
That welcomes every stranger that can pay; 
With sulky eye he smoak'd the patient man, 
Then puU'd his breeches tight, and thus began, &c.' 

" All this is taken, you see, from nature. It 
is a good remark of Montaign[e]'s that the wisest 
men often have friends, with whom they do not 
care how much they play the fool. Take my 
present follies as instances of regard. Poetry is 
a much easier, and more agreeable species of 
composition than prose, and could a man live by 
it, it were not unpleasant employment to be a 
poet."^ 

Honest Henry Goldsmith, in his faraway Irish 

1 Miscellaneous Works, 1837,1, 57-9. 



A Memoir 71 

curacy, might perhaps be excused from offering 
any critical opinions upon a fragment, the ulti- 
mate development of which it was so little 
possible to forecast. The author himself seems 
to have carried it no farther than this introduc- 
tory description, some details of which are 
certainly borrowed from his own Green Arbour 
Court environment. It was still a fragment 
when later he worked it into letter xxix. of 
"The Citizen of the World;" and when, in 
1 770, part of it served for the decoration of ' ' The 
Deserted Village," it had found its definitive 
use. But it is interesting as being, with excep- 
tion of the trifling epigram written in Scotland 
in 1753, and already referred to in chapter ii., 
the first poetical utterance of Goldsmith con- 
cerning which there is express evidence. From 
this alone, as the production of a poet of thirty- 
one, it would be hard to predict *'The 
Traveller" or "Retaliation." Certainly, as 
Johnson said. Goldsmith " was a plant that 
flowered late." 

Not long after the date of the above letter to 
Henry Goldsmith, Breakneck Steps were scaled 
by an illustrious inquirer, whose experiences 
are, with becoming mystery, related in the 
'^ Percy Memoir." "A friend of his/' says 
that record, in some respects the most important 



72 Oliver Goldsmith 

account that exists concerning Goldsmith, 
" paying him a visit at the beginning of March, 
1759, found him in lodgings there so poor and 
uncomfortable, that he should not think it proper 
to mention the circumstance, if he did not con- 
sider it as the highest proof of the splendour of 
Dr. Goldsmith's genius and talents, that by the 
bare exertion of their powers, under every dis- 
advantage of person and fortune, he could 
gradually emerge from such obscurity to the 
enjoyment of all the comforts and even luxuries 
of life, and admission into the best societies in 
London. The Doctor was writing his Enquiry, 
&c., in a wretched dirty room, in which there 
was but one chair, and when he, from civility, 
offered it to his visitant, himself was obliged to 
sit in the window. While they were convers- 
ing, some one gently rapped at the door, and 
being desired to come in, a poor little ragged 
girl of very decent behaviour, entered, who, 
dropping a curtsie, said, ' My mamma sends her 
compliments, and begs the favour of you to 
lend her a chamber-pot full of coals.' "-^ 

The visitor here mentioned so reticently was 

Percy himself, not yet Bishop of Dromore, but 

only chaplain to Lord Sussex and Vicar of 

Easton Mauduit in Northamptonshire. He had 

1 Miscellaneous Works, 1837, i, 61. 



A Memoir 73 

been introduced to Goldsmith by Grainger of 
The Monlhly Review, at the Temple Exchange 
Coffee House ; and as he was already collect- 
ing the materials for his " Reliques of English 
Poetry," had no doubt been attracted by his 
new friend's knowledge of ballad literature. 
He was wrong, however, in thinking that Gold- 
smith was writing the " Enquiry," of which he 
must rather have been correcting the proofs, as 
it was published for the Dodsleys in the follow- 
ing April. 

It is a commonplace to say that the *' Enquiry 
into the Present State of Polite Learning in 
Europe " was somewhat over-titled. In the 
first edition it is but a small and not very closely 
printed duodecimo of two hundred pages ; and 
it is shorter still in the revised issue of 1774, 
from which a considerable portion, and notably 
much of the chapter relating to the stage, was 
withdrawn. Obviously so wide a survey could 
scarcely be confined in so narrow a space. 
Nor, with all his gifts, was Goldsmith sufficiently 
equipped for the task. It is true he had 
travelled upon the Continent (his sketch, he 
says, though general, "was for the most part 
taken upon the spot "), and he was right in 
claiming certain advantages for the pedestrian's 
point of view. " A man who is whirled through 



74 Oliver Goldsmith 

Europe in a postchaise, and the pilgrim who 
walks the grand tour on foot, will form, very 
different conclusions," he affirms, adding, with a 
frankness confined to the first edition, " Hand 
inexpertus loquor.'' ^ But he forgot that there is 
also something to be said for the rival mode of 
locomotion, and that it may be urged that the 
one he adopted is open to the charge of being 
too exclusively that of an outsider. It is need- 
less, however, to cross-question closely the 
agreement of Goldsmith's performance with his 
promise. What attracted him most, as Mr. 
Forster has not failed to point out, was less the 
condition of letters in Europe than the condition 
of letters in the immediate neighbourhood of 
his retreat in the Old Bailey. The mercantile 
avidity and sordid standards of the bookseller, 
the venal rancour of the hungry critics in his 
pay, the poverty of the poets, the decay of 
patronage, the slow rewards of genius, all these 
were nearer to his heart (and vision) than the 
learning of Luitprandus, or the " philological 
performances " of Constantinus Afer. Some of 
his periods, indeed, have almost a note of 
personal disclosure. Who shall say, for ex- 
ample, that, in more than one sentence of the 
following, it was not Oliver Goldsmith whom he 

1 FoliU Learning, 1759, p. 181. 



A Memoir 75 

had in mind ? ** If the author be, therefore, 
still so necessary among us, let us treat him with 
proper consideration, as a child of the public, 
not a rent-charge on the community. And, in- 
deed, a child of the public he is in all respects ; 
for while so well able to direct others, how in- 
capable is he frequently found of guiding him- 
self. His simplicity exposes him to all the 
insidious approaches of cunning, his sensibility 
to the slightest invasions of contempt. Though 
possessed of fortitude to stand unmoved the 
expected bursts of an earthquake, yet of feelings 
so exquisitely poignant, as to agonise under the 
slightest disappointment.^ Broken rest, taste- 
less meals, and causeless anxiety, shorten his 
life, or render it unfit for active employment ; 
prolonged vigils, and intense application, still 
farther contract his span, and make his time 
glide insensibly away. ... It is enough that 
the age has already yielded instances of men 
pressing foremost in the lists of fame, and 
worthy of better times, schooled by continued 
adversity into an hatred of their kind, flying 
from thought to drunkenness, yielding to the 
united pressure of labour, penury, and sorrow, 
sinking unheeded, without one friend to drop a 
tear on their unattended obsequies, and indebted 
1 Cf. Citizen of the World, 1762, ii, 81 (Let. IxxxL). 



76 Oliver Goldsmith 

to charity for a grave among the dregs of 
mankind."^ 

The title-page of the '' Enquiry" was without 
an author's name ; but Goldsmith made no 
secret of his connection with the book. It was 
fairly received. The Gentleman's published a 
long letter respecting it, and the two Reviews 
(the Monthly and the Critical) gave reports of 
its contents, both coloured, more or less, by a 
sense of the references which they detected in 
it to'themselves. Smollett, in the Critical, was 
hurt that '* a work undertaken from public 
spirit," such as his own, should be confused 
with " one supported for the sordid purposes of 
a bookseller" such as Griffiths; and the book- 
seller on his side did not omit, in the true spirit 
of vulgar reprisal, to salt his notice with un- 
worthy innuendoes directed at his own not very 
satisfactory relations with Goldsmith. Such a 
course was to be expected in such a warfare ; 
and it is idle now to grow virtuously indignant, 
because, read by the light of Goldsmith's later 
fame, these old injuries seem all the blacker. 
What most concerns us at present is that 
the ** Enquiry" was Goldsmith's first original 
work, and that he revealed in it the dawning 
graces of a style, which, as yet occasionally 

^ Polite Learning^i"] tf), pp. 142-4. 



A Memoir 77 

elliptical and jerky, and disfigured here and 
there by Johnsonian constructions, nevertheless 
ran bright and clear. Acting upon his maxim 
that "to be dull and dronish, is an encroach- 
ment on the prerogative of a folio," he had, 
moreover, successfully avoided that ** didactic 
stiffness of w^isdom," v^^hich he declared to be 
the prevailing vice of the performances of his 
day. "The most diminutive son of fame, or of 
famine," he said, "has his we and his ms, his 
firstlfs and his secondlfs as methodical, as if 
bound in cow-hide, and closed w^ith clasps of 
brass." -^ His own work could not be accused 
justly of this defect. But on the whole, and 
looking to the main purpose of his pages, it 
must be conceded that he made better use of 
his continental experiences in the descriptive 
passages of " The Traveller " than in the critical 
apothegms of '^An Enquiry into the Present 
State of Polite Learning in Europe." 

The " Enquiry," however, had one salutary 
effect : it attracted some of the more sagacious 
of the bookselling trade to the freshness and 
vivacity of the writer's manner. Towards the 
close of 17^9 he is contributing both prose and 
verse to three periodicals, The Bee, The Lady's 
Magazine, and The Busy Body. The first two 

^ Polite Learjiing, 1759, pp. 153, 154. 



78 Oliver Goldsmith 

were published by J. Wilkie, at the Bible in 
St. Paul's Churchyard ; the last, a paper in 
the old Spectator form — for which Goldsmith 
wrote, among other things, an excellent essay on 
the Clubs of London — by one Pottinger. But 
the fullest exhibition of his growing strength 
and variety is to be found in the eight, or rather 
the seven numbers, since the last is mainly bor- 
rowed, of The Bee, further described as " a select 
Collection of Essays on the most Interesting 
and Entertaining Subjects." The motto was — 

" Floriferis ut apes saltibus omnia libant 
Omnia nos itidem," — 

from Lucretius, and it was issued in threepenny 
parts, twelve forming •' a handsome pocket 
volume," to which was to be prefixed the ortho- 
dox " emblematical frontispiece." Some of the 
contents were merely translations from Voltaire, 
upon whose " Memoirs," we know^. Goldsmith 
had recently been working ; some, such as 
"The History of Hypatia," the heroine of 
Charles Kingsley's novel, were historical and 
biographical; others again, — for example, "The 
Story of Alcander and Septimius," and " Sabinus 
and Olinda," — were more or less original. 
But the distinctive feature of the book is the 
marked ability of its critical and social sketches. 



A Memoir 79 

The theatrical papers, with their neat contrast 
between French and English actors, as regards 
what, in "The Deserted Village," the author 
calls ** gestic lore, their excellent portrait of 
Mademoiselle Clairon, their shrewd discerning 
of stage improprieties, and their just apprecia- 
tion of " High Life below Stairs," are still well 
worth reading. Not less excellent are the 
capital character sketches, after the manner of 
Addison and Steele, of Jack Spindle, with his 
" many friends," and " my Cousin Hannah" in 
all the glories of her white ndgligde, her wintry 
charms, and her youthful finery. In a paper 
"On the Pride and Luxury of the Middling 
Class of People," he anticipates certain of the 
later couplets of his didactic poems ; in an- 
other, " On the Sagacity of some Insects," he 
gives a foretaste of that delicate and minute 
habit of observation which dictated not a few 
of the happier pages of "The History of Ani- 
mated Nature," while in an account of the 
Academies of Italy, he reverts to the theme of 
the " Enquiry." Among the remaining papers 
two chiefly deserve notice. One, " A City 
Night-Piece," a title obviously suggested by 
Parnell, is tremulous with that unfeigned com- 
passion for the miseries of his kind with which 
he had walked the London streets ; the other, 



8o Oliver Goldsmith 

a semi-allegoric sketch in No. v., a little in the 
Lucianic spirit of Fielding's "Journey from 
this World to the Next," is interesting for its 
references to some of his contemporaries. It is 
entitled " A Resverie," in which the luminaries 
of literature are figured as passengers by a stage- 
coach, christened '^ The Fame Machine." The 
coachman has just returned from his last trip to 
the Temple of Fame, having carried as passen- 
gers Addison, Swift, Pope, Steele, Congreve, 
and CoUey Gibber, and the journey has been ac- 
complished with no worse mishap than a black 
eye given by CoUey to Mr. Pope. (Had Field- 
ing been of the party, as he should have been, 
that black eye would certainly have been repaid I) 
Among the next batch of candidates are Hill, 
the quack author of "The Inspector," and the 
dramatist Arthur Murphy, both of whom are 
declined by Jehu. Hume, who is refused a 
seat for his theological essays, obtains one for 
his history ; and Smollett, who fails with his 
history, succeeds with his novels. Another 
intending passenger is Johnson, and the page 
describing his proceedings is worth quoting for 
its ingenious tissue of praise and blame : — 

"This was a very grave personage, whom 
at some distance I took for one of the most 



A Memoir 8i 

reserved, and even disagreeable figures I had 
seen ; but as he approached, his appearance 
improved, and when I could distinguish him 
thoroughly, I perceived, that, in spite of the 
severity of his brow, he had one of the most 
good-natured countenances that could be im- 
agined. Upon coming to open the stage door, 
he lifted a parcel of folios into the seat before 
him, but our inquisitorial coachman at once 
shoved them out again. ' What, not take in 
my dictionary I ' exclaimed the other in a rage. 
' Be patient, sir,' (replyed the coachman) ' I have 
drove a coach, man and boy, these two thousand 
years ; but I do not remember to have carried 
above one dictionary during the whole time. 
That little book which I perceive peeping from 
one of your pockets, may I presume to ask what it 
contains ? ' 'A mere trifle,' ( replied the author) 
' it is called the Rambler.' * The Rambler 1 ' 
(says the coachman) ' I beg, sir, you'll take 
your place ; I have heard our ladies in the court 
of Apollo frequently mention it with rapture ; 
and Clio, who happens to be a little grave, has 
been heard to prefer it to the Spectator ; though 
others have observed, that the reflections, by 
being refined, sometimes become minute.'"^ 

1 The Bee, 1759, pp. 151-2 (No. v.). 
6 



82 Oliver Goldsmith 

At this date (November, 17^9) there seems to 
have been no personal acquaintance between 
Johnson, whose ^' Rasselas " had followed hard 
upon the " Enquiry," and the still obscure es- 
sayist of Green Arbour Court. But the friend- 
ship between the two was not now to be long 
deferred, and may indeed have been hastened by 
the foregoing tribute from the younger man. 

There is one feature of Goldsmith's labours 
for Messrs. Wilkie and Pottinger which de- 
serves a final word. Scattered through The Bee 
and The Busy Body are several pieces of verse, 
which, if we except a translation of part of a 
Latin' prologue from Macrobius included in the 
first edition of the " Enquiry," constitute the 
earliest of Goldsmith's published poetical works. 
Only one of these, some not very remarkable 
quatrains on the death of Wolfe, can be said 
to be original; the rest are imitations. "The 
Logicians Refuted " is indeed so close a copy 
of Swift as to have been included by Scott 
among that writer's works ; the others, with 
one exception, are variations from the French. 
They comprise two well-known examples of the 
author's lighter manner. In "The Gift: To 
Iris, in Bow-Street, Covent Garden," he man- 
ages to marry something of Gallic vivacity to 
the numbers of Prior; in the " Elegy on Mrs. 



A Memoir 2>i 

Mary Blaize," borrowing a trick from the old 
song of M. de la Palisse, and an epigrammatic 
finish from Voltaire, he contrives to laugh anew 
at the many imitators of Gray. If they do no 
more, these trifles at least serve to show that 
the lightness of touch, which is one of his char- 
acteristics, had not been studied exclusively on 
English soil. 



CHAPTER V 

Amenities of authorship ; Newbery and Smollett; work for The 
British Magazine; "History of Miss Stanton;" other con- 
tributions; The Public Ledger ; Chinese letters begun, Janu- 
ary 24, 1760; The Lady^s Magazine; moves into 6, Wine 
Office Court, Fleet Street; entertains Johnson there May 31, 
1761; "Memoirs of Voltaire" published; "History of 
Mecklenburgh " published, February 26, 1762; Cock Lane 
Ghost pamphlet; " Citizen of the World " published, May i ; 
account of that book; "The Man in Black" and "Beau 
Tibbs; " anecdotes; Plutarch's lives begun, May i; out of 
town ; " Life of Nash " published, October 14 ; sale of third 
share in "Vicar of Wakefield" to Benjamin Collins, printer, 
of Salisbury, October 28. 

nPHE visitors to Green Arbour Court were 
-■' not always as illustrious as the Reverend 
Thomas Percy. One day, according to an in- 
formant from whom Prior collected some par- 
ticulars respecting Goldsmith's residence at the 
top of Breakneck Steps, a caller was shown up 
to him with that absence of ceremony which was 
the hospitable rule of his house, and the door 
of the room was shortly afterwards locked with 
decision. Sounds of controversy succeeded. 
But, as both voices were heard in turn (amant 



A Memoir 85 

alterna Camoence !), and the tumult gradually 
subsided, the apprehensions of the listeners also 
passed away. Late in the evening the door 
was unfastened, the stranger dispatched a mes- 
senger to a neighbouring tavern to order supper, 
and '' the gentlemen who met so ungraciously 
at first, spent the remainder of the evening in 
great good humour,"^ The explanation of this 
incident, which, in all probability, belongs to 
the last months of 1759, is that Goldsmith had 
been behindhand when Mr. Pottinger, or Mr. 
Wilkie of St. Paul's Churchyard, was clamour- 
ing for '^copy" for the next number of The 
Bee or The Busy Body, and that the entertain- 
ment was the consideration offered for the 
unwonted course taken to obtain the required 
manuscript. It may also serve to throw some 
light on the short existences of those periodicals, 
by referring them to the uncertain inspiration or 
fastidious taste of the principal writer. '' I could 
not suppress my lurking passion for applause," 
says George Primrose ; " but usually consumed 
that time in efforts after excellence which takes 
up but little room, when it should have been 
more advantageously employed in the diffusive 
productions of fruitful mediocrity. . . . Phi- 
lautos, Philalethes, Philelutheros, and Philan- 
1 Prior's Life, 1837, i, 328-9. 



S6 Oliver Goldsmith 

thropos, all wrote better, because they wrote 
faster, than I."^ 

But, in spite of these drawbacks, the literary 
quality manifested in the two periodicals above 
referred to, although they were powerless to 
catch the ear of the general reader, was still 
too unmistakeable to be neglected by those on 
the alert for fresh talent. Towards the end of 
1759, two persons made their way to Green 
Arbour Court, both of whom were bent on 
securing Goldsmith's collaboration in new 
enterprises. One was Dr. Tobias Smollett, 
author of '^ Roderick Random " and " Peregrine 
Pickle," at this time fresh from imprisonment 
in the King's Bench, to which he had been 
subjected for his too frank criticism of Admiral 
Knowles ; the other was a pimple-faced and 
bustling little bookseller of St. Paul's Church- 
yard, John Newbery by name, whose ubiqui- 
tous energy his friend Dr. Johnson had play- 
fully satirised in The Idler under the character 
of "Jack Whirler." Smollett, not, it maybe 
imagined, less amiably disposed on account of 
the little compliment in the paper on the 
" Fame Machine" referred to in the last chap- 
ter, wished to obtain Goldsmith's services for 
a new magazine. The British, which appeared 

1 Vicar of Wakefield, 1766, ii, 10. 



A Memoir 87 

on the ist of January, 1760, with a flaming- 
dedication to Mr. Pitt, and the opening chap- 
ters of the editor's new novel of " Sir Launcelot 
Greaves." For this latest recruit to the already 
crowded ranks of the monthlies, Goldsmith 
wrote some of the best of the papers afterwards 
reprinted among his '* Essays." In the Febru- 
ary and two subsequent numbers came that 
admirable " Reverie at the Boar's Head Tavern 
in Eastcheap," which rubs so much of the gilt 
off the good old times. In May followed an 
allegory in the popular taste: in June a com- 
parison between two rival sirens at Vauxhall, 
Mrs. Vincent and Miss Brent, which is also a 
piece of close musical criticism. Three other 
contributions succeeded in July, one of which, 
^'The History of Miss Stanton," it has been 
the custom to regard as a kind of early draught 
of the " Vicar of Wakefield." Goldsmith was 
so economical of his good things, and used them 
so often, that it is, of course, not impossible 
the " first rude germ" of his famous novel may 
lie in this " true though artless tale " of a seduc- 
tion. Yet the "Vicar" would be little if 
it contained no more than is outlined in the 
characterless and rather absurd contribution to 
Smollett's magazine. Indeed, the conclusion 
is so "artless" as to justify a doubt whether 



S8 Oliver Goldsmith 

the paper should really be attributed to Gold- 
smith's pen at all. At the end the seducer and 
the incensed parent exchange shots ; the latter 
falls '* forward to the ground " and his daughter 
falls " lifeless upon the body. . . . Though 
Mr. Dawson [the villain of the piece] was be- 
fore untouched with the infamy he had brought 
upon virtuous innocence," the story goes on 
to say, "yet he had not a heart of stone; 
and bursting into anguish, flew to the lovely 
mourner, and offered that moment to repair 
his foul offences by matrimony. The old man, 
who had only pretended to be dead, now rising 
up, claimed the performance of his promise ; and 
the other had too much honour to refuse. They 
were immediately conducted to church, where 
they were married, and now live exemplary in- 
stances of conjugal love and fidelity."^ Either 
Goldsmith is not guilty of this farrago of foolery 
and anticlimax (the italicised passages in which 
may be specially commended to notice) or it 
must once more be owned that truth is incon- 
ceivably stranger than fiction. 

But although, in the opinion of the present 
writer. Miss Stanton's equivocal "history" is 
to be classed among the doubtful contributions 
of Goldsmith to The British Magazine, there are 

1 Goldsmith's Works, by Gibbs, 1885, iv, 495-6. 



A Memoir 89 

some other pieces concerning which there is no 
necessity to speak hesitatingly. Two of these, 
indeed, like the " Reverie at the Boar's Head," 
were afterwards included among the acknowl- 
edged ^' Essays" of 1765. One is an excellent 
homily on the " Distresses of the Poor," as 
exemplified in the cheerful philosophy of an 
humble optimist, who, battered almost out of 
shape by war and privations, still contrives to 
bless God that he enjoys good health, and 
knows of no enemy in the world save the 
French and the Justice of the Peace. The 
other, in which a shabby fellow, found loung- 
ing in St. James's Park, relates the " Adven- 
tures of a Strolling Player," has already been 
referred to in chapter iii., as probably repro- 
ducing some of the writer's own histrionic ex- 
periences. By October, 1760, however, the 
month in which it was published, Goldsmith was 
already well advanced in a continuous series 
of papers which were to prove of far greater 
importance than his occasional efforts for Smol- 
lett. A few days after the publication of the first 
number of The British Magazine, appeared the 
first number of another of Newbery's projects, 
the daily paper entitled The Public Ledger. 
For this also he had secured the services of 
Goldsmith, who was to write twice a week 



90 Oliver Goldsmith 

at the modest rate of a guinea per article. One 
of the earliest of his efforts was what would 
now be regarded as a heinous piece of partisan- 
ship, an adroit but unblushing puff of The 
British' Magazine, and Smollett's novel therein. 
But before this appeared he had already estab- 
lished a hold upon the Ledger s readers. With 
a short letter in the number for January 24th, 
he had introduced to England a Chinese visitor 
— one Lien Chi Altangi. Five days later came 
another epistle from this personage to a mer- 
chant in Amsterdam, giving his impressions of 
London, its streets and its signboards, its gloom 
and its gutters. * A third letter, addressed to a 
friend in China, laughed with assumed Orien- 
tal gravity at its men and women of fashion. 
Thus, without method, and almost by a nat- 
ural growth, began the famous work afterwards 
known as " The Citizen of the World." 

The " Chinese Letters," as they soon came 
to be called, progressed through 1760 with 
great regularity, and were completed, though 
rather more tardily, in the following year, under 
which date it will be most convenient to speak 
of them. For the moment, we may return to 
the chronicle of their writer's life. Beside his 
work for the Ledger and The British Maga:{ine, 
he resumed his old connection with The Lady s 



A Memoir 91 

Magazine in the new capacity of editor, and 
raised its circulation considerably. He also 
contributed some serious biographies to The 
Christian Magazine of Dr. Dodd, who was 
afterwards executed for forgery. All this de- 
notes varied activity and continuous occupation. 
His means at this time must have been sufficient, 
and, as a consequence, he moved, at the close 
of 1760, into better lodgings at No. 6, Wine 
Office Court, nearly opposite that ancient hos- 
telry of the " Cheshire Cheese," still dear to 
the praisers of time past as a " murmurous 
haunt " of Johnson and his friends. Goldsmith 
occupied these lodgings for about two years ; 
and it was here, according to the *' Percy 
Memoir," that, on May 31, 1761, he received 
his first visit from Johnson, whom he had asked 
to supper. " One of the company then invited," 
— this is the decorous circumlocution used for 
Percy by those who compiled the Memoir of 
1 80 1, — ''being intimate with our great Lexi- 
cographer, was desired to call upon him and 
take him with him. As they went together, 
the former was much struck by the studied 
neatness of Johnson's dress : he had on a new 
suit of cloaths, a new wig nicely powdered, 
and everything about him so perfectly dissimilar 
from his usual habits and appearance, that his 



92 Oliver Goldsmith 

companion could not help inquiring the cause 
of this singular transformation. ' Why, sir,' said 
Johnson, ' I hear that Goldsmith, who is a very 
great sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness 
and decency, by quoting my practice, and I 
am desirous this night to show him a better 
example.' "^ 

Boswell did not make Johnson's acquaintance 
until two years after this occurrence, and there 
is therefore no further account of this memo- 
rable entertainment. Beyond the publication 
in The Lady's Magazine of the " Memoirs 
of Voltaire," nothing notable seems to have 
happened to Goldsmith in the remaining months 
of 1 76 1. Probably he was at work for New- 
bery, for early in the following year, he issued 
a "■ History of Mecklenburgh," a concession to 
the anticipated interest in Queen Charlotte, 
and a pamphlet on the Cock Lane Ghost, 
which has been identified plausibly, but not 
conclusively, with one bearing the title of " The 
Mystery Revealed," put forth by Newbery's 
neighbour, Bristow. Cock Lane, it may be 
added, was close to Goldsmith's old residence 
in Green Arbour Court, so that in any case he 
would be in familiar neighbourhood. Then in 
May, 1762, in " two volumes of the usual Specta- 

^ Miscellaneous Works, 1801, i, 62-3. 



A Memoir 93 

for size," that is, in duodecimo, and ** Printed for 
the Author," who still preserved what was now 
the merest figment of anonymity, appeared the 
collected " Chinese Letters," under the title of 
' ' The Citizen of the World ; or. Letters from 
a Chinese Philosopher, residing in London, to 
his Friends in the East." The phrase " Citi- 
zen of the World," was one Goldsmith had 
already used more than once, and it had the 
advantage of greater novelty than " Chinese 
Letters," a title, moreover, which had already 
been anticipated by the " Lettres Chinoises," 
published by the Marquis d'Argens. The com- 
pleted issue was heralded by one of the author's 
most characteristic prefaces ; and his prefaces, 
like his dedications, have always their distinctive 
touch. Speaking of the relation between his 
creation and himself, after recapitulating some 
of his efforts to preserve an Oriental local col- 
ouring (even to the item of occasional dulness), 
he says : " We are told in an old romance of a 
certain knight errant and his horse who con- 
tracted an intimate friendship. The horse most 
usually bore the knight, but, in cases of extra- 
ordinary dispatch, the knight returned the favour, 
and carried his horse. Thus in the intimacy 
between my author and me, he has usually given 
me a lift of his Eastern sublimity, and I have 



94 Oliver Goldsmith 

sometimes given him a return of my colloquial 
ease." Then, after a dream, in which he repre- 
sents himself as wheeling his barrowful of 
"Chinese morality" on the cracking ice of 
** Fashion Fair/' he continues, " I cannot help 
wishing that the pains taken in giving this 
correspondence an English dress, had been 
employed in contriving new political systems, or 
new plots for farces. I might then have taken 
my station in the world, either as a poet or a 
philosopher ; and made one in those little soci- 
eties where men club to raise each other's repu- 
tation. But at present I belong to no particular 
class. I resemble one of those solitary animals, 
that has been forced from its forest to gratify 
human curiosity. My earliest wish was to 
escape unheeded through life ; but I have been 
set up for half-pence, to fret and scamper at the 
end of my chain. Tho' none are injured by my 
rage, I am naturally too savage to court any 
friends by fawning. Too obstinate to be taught 
new tricks ; and too improvident to mind what 
may happen, I am appeased, though not con- 
tented. Too indolent for intrigue, and too 
timid to push for favour, I am — But what sig- 
nifies what am I."^ And thereupon he winds 
up with a Greek couplet very much to the same 
1 Citizen of the Worlds 1762, i, iv-v, v-vi. 



A Memoir 95 

effect as that with which Senor Gil Bias of 
Santillane concludes the first conclusion of his 
delectable history.^ 

In some of the advertisements of " The 
Citizen of the World " it was announced that 
the greater part of the work " was written by 
Dr. Goldsmith." This is a misconception, which 
arose from the fact that he had included among 
the epistles of Lien Chi Altangi a few of the 
anonymous contributions he had supplied to The, 
Bee and other periodicals. Thus, " The City 
Night Piece " reappears as letter cxvii., and 
''The Distresses of a Common Soldier," from 
The British Magazine, as letter cxix. Haste 
and pressure may, in the first instance, have 
prompted these revivals ; but they were perfectly 
defensible, especially if we remember, as Gold- 
smith himself illustrates by a pleasant anecdote in 
the preface to a later volume, that the author who 
is preyed upon by others has certainly a prior 
right to prey upon himself. Omitting these, 
however, and omitting also those which are 
inspired by the scheme, and which deal chiefly 
with memories of Du Halde, Le Comte, and 

1 In the later editions the following translation is 
added ; 

" Fortune and Hope, adieu ! — I see my port : 
Too long your dupe — be others now your sport." 



g6 Oliver Goldsmith 

the other authorities on China consulted by 
Goldsmith, there remains a far larger amount of 
material than could be analysed in these pages. 
The mind of the author, stored with the mis- 
cellaneous observations of thirty years, turns 
from one subject to another, with a freshness 
and variety which delight us almost as much as 
they must have delighted the readers of his own 
day. Now he is poking admirable fun at that 
fashionable type, already the butt of Hogarth 
and Reynolds, the fine-art connoisseur, whom 
he exhibits writing enthusiastically from abroad 
to his noble father to tell him that a notable 
torso, hitherto thought to be *'a Cleopatra 
bathing," has turned out to be "a Hercules 
spinning ; " now, in an account of a journey to 
Kentish Town after the manner of modern voy- 
agers, he ridicules the pompous trivialities of 
travellers. Another paper laughs at the folly of 
funeral elegies upon the great ; another at the 
absurdity of titles. More than one of the 
Chinese philosopher's effusions are devoted to 
contemporary quacks, the Rocks and Wards, 
and so forth, who engross the advertisement 
sheets of the day ; others treat of the love for 
monsters, of the trains of the ladies, of their 
passion for paint and gaming. There is an 
essay on the behaviour of the congregation at 



A Memoir 97 

St. Paul's, to which it would be easy to find a 
counterpart in Steele ; there is another on the 
bad taste of making a show out of the tombs 
and monuments in Westminster Abbey, which 
recalls Addison. Literature, of course, is not 
neglected. Some of its humbler professors are 
hit off in the description of the Saturday Club 
at "The Broom near Islington"; other and 
graver utterances lament the decay of poetry, 
the taste for obscene novels (" Tristram Shandy," 
to wit), the folly of useless disquisitions among 
the learned, the impossibility of success without 
means or intrigue. The theatre also receives 
its full share of attention, as do the coronation, 
the courts of justice, and the racecourse at New- 
market. Mourning, mad dogs, the Marriage 
Act, have each and all their turn, nor does Lien 
Chi Altangi omit to touch upon such graver 
subjects as the horrors of the penal laws and the 
low standard of public morality. 

But what perhaps is a more interesting feature 
of the Chinese philosopher's pages than even his 
ethical disquisitions, is the evidence they afford 
of the coming creator of Tony Lumpkin and 
Dr. Primrose. In the admirable portrait of the 
" Man in Black," with his " reluctant good- 
ness " and his Goldsmith family traits, there is a 
foretaste of some of the most charming charac- 

7 



98 Oliver Goldsmith 

teristics of the vicar of Wakefield ; while in the 
picture of the pinched and tarnished little beau, 
with his mechanical chatter about the Countess 
of All-Night and the Duke of Piccadilly, set to 
the forlorn burden of "lend me half-a-crown," 
he adds a character-sketch, however lightly 
touched, to that immortal gallery which contains 
the finished full-lengths of Parson Adams and 
Squire Western, of Matthew Bramble and " my 
Uncle Toby." ^ From the fact that Goldsmith 
omitted the third of the •' Beau Tibbs" series 
from the later ^' Essays " of 1765, it would seem 
that he thought the other two the better. It 
may be that they are more finely wrought ; but 
the account of the party at Vauxhall, with the 
delightful sparring of the beau's lady and the 
pawnbroker's widow, and the utter breakdown 
in the decorum of the latter, when, constrained by 
good-manners to listen to the faded vocalisation of 
Mrs. Tibbs, she is baulked of her heart's desire, 
the diversion of the waterworks, is as fresh in its 
fidelity to human nature, and as eternally effec- 
tive in its artistic oppositions of character, as any 
of the best efforts of the great masters of fiction. 

1 In his delightful Gossip in a Library y 1891, p. 210, 
Mr. Edmund Gosse detects certain resemblances between 
Beau Tibbs and the Count Tag of Coventry's Pompey the 
Little. 



A Memoir 99 

One of the stories in " The Citizen of the 
World," that of " Prince Bonbennin and the 
White Mouse," has, rightly or wrongly, been 
connected with a ludicrous incident in Gold- 
smith's own career. Among his many hangers- 
on was a certain Pilkington, — the son, in fact, 
of Swift's Lsetitia of that name, — who, on one 
occasion, called upon him with a cock-and-bull 
story about some white mice, which he, the 
said Pilkington, had (he alleged) been com- 
missioned to obtain for a lady of quality, the 
Duchess of Manchester or Portland being 
mentioned. The mice had been secured ; the 
ship that bore them lay in the river ; and nothing 
— so ran Pilkington's romance — was wanting 
but a paltry two guineas to buy a cage, and 
enable the importer to make a decent appearance 
before his patroness. He accordingly applied 
to his old college-fellow. Goldsmith, who, not 
having the money, was, of course, easily cajoled 
into letting his necessitous friend pawn his 
watch. As might be expected, neither watch 
nor Pilkington was ever seen again, and Gold- 
smith was fain to console himself by composing 
a little apologue in his " Chinese Letters," in 
which white mice played a leading part. 
Another anecdote of this time is connected 
more with the study of manners which produced 



loo Oliver Goldsmith 

*'The Citizen of the World" than with any 
particular utterance of Lien Chi Altangi. Once, 
when strolling in the gardens of White Conduit 
House at Islington, he came upon three ladies 
of his acquaintance, to whom he straightway 
proffered the entertainment of a dish of tea. 
The invitation was accepted and the hospitality 
enjoyed, when, to Goldsmith's intense discom- 
fiture, he suddenly discovered that he could not 
pay the bill. Luckily some friends arrived, who, 
after maliciously enjoying his embarrassment, at 
length released him from his quandary. 

Upon the same day as "The Citizen of the 
World " was published, appeared the first in- 
stalment of another of those compilations for 
Newbery which Goldsmith, having tasted that 
dangerous delight of money advances for unexe- 
cuted work, was tempted to undertake. This 
was a " Compendium of Biography " for young 
people, the opening volumes of which were 
based upon Plutarch's '' Lives." It was in- 
tended to continue them indefinitely ; but seven 
volumes, the last of which was published in 
November, were all that appeared, *' The 
British Plutarch " of Dilly proving a fatal rival. 
Before the fifth volume was finished Goldsmith 
fell ill, and it was completed by a bookseller's 
hack of the name of Collier. Whether Collier 



A Memoir loi 

also did the sixth and seventh volumes does not 
appear. But Goldsmith's ill-health, caused 
mainly by the close application which had 
succeeded to the vagrant habits he had formed 
in early life, had now become confirmed, and he 
spent some part of this year at Tunbridge and 
Bath, then the approved resorts of invalids.^ 
Early in the year one of Newbery's receipts 
shows that he had agreed to write, or had 
already written, a " Life of Richard Nash," the 
fantastic old Master of the Ceremonies at Bath. 
The book, which was published in October, 
is a gossiping volume of some two hundred and 
thirty pages, pleasantly interspersed with those 
anecdotes which Johnson thought essential to 
biography, and containing some interesting de- 
tails upon the manners and customs of the old 
city, so dear to the pages of Anstey and 
Smollett. The price paid for it by Newbery, 
according to the receipt above mentioned, was 
fourteen guineas. 

With one exception, nothing else of import- 
ance occurred to Goldsmith in 1762. This ex- 
ception was the sale by him to a certain 
Benjamin Collins, printer, of Salisbury, for the 

1 " And once in seven years I 'm seen 
At Bath or Tunbridge to careen." 

Green's Spleen. 



I02 Oliver Goldsmith 

sum of twenty guineas, of a third share of a 
new book, in " 2 vols., i2mo.," either already 
written or being written, and entitled " The 
Vicar of Wakefield." The sale took place on 
the 28th October, and the circumstance, first 
disclosed by Mr. Charles Welsh in the memoir 
of Newbery which he published in 1885, under 
the tide of " A Bookseller of the Last Century," 
throws a new, if somewhat troubled, light upon 
the early history of the " Vicar," as related by 
Goldsmith's biographers. This question, how- 
ever, will be more fitly discussed in a future 
chapter. 



CHAPTER VI 

Goldsmith at Salisbury (?); removes to Mrs. Fleming's at Isling- 
ton; Mrs. Fleming's bills; hack-work for Newbery; "His- 
tory of England in a Series of Letters from a Nobleman to 
his Son" published, June 26, 1764; Hogarth at Islington; 
his portraits of Mrs. Fleming (?) and Goldsmith; "The 
Club," 1764; its origin and first members ; Goldsmith "as he 
struck his contemporaries"; writing "The Traveller" at 
Islington ; publication of that poem, December 19; its dedi- 
cation to his brother Henry; Johnson's influence and opinion; 
characteristics and bibliography ; sum paid to author. 

TX 7HETHER the transaction referred to at 
' * the end of the last chapter took place 
at Salisbury, or whether Benjamin Collins made 
his investment in London, are points upon which 
there is no information. But it is not at all 
improbable that Goldsmith may have visited 
Salisbury in the autumn of 1762, and that the 
sale of the " Vicar" may have been the result 
of a sudden " lack of pence." Collins had 
business relations with Newbery. He was part- 
proprietor of that famous Fever Powder of Dr. 
James, upon which, in the sequel, Goldsmith 
so disastrously relied ; and in Mr. Welsh's 



104 Oliver Goldsmith 

*' Bookseller of the Last Century," he is also 
stated to have held shares in The Public Ledger, 
the idea of which he claimed to have originated. 
It is most likely therefore that, being known to 
Newbery, he was known to Goldsmith, and 
Goldsmith's appeal to Collins, when finding 
himself in the town in which Collins lived, 
would be a natural and intelligible step. 

To pass however from conjecture to certainty, 
there is no doubt that, towards the end of 1762, 
Goldsmith, for the time at all events, transferred 
his residence from Wine Office Court to Isling- 
ton, then a countrified suburb of London. It 
was a place with which, apparently, he was 
already familiar, since he locates the Club of 
Authors in '' The Citizen of the World " at the 
sign of The Broom in that neighbourhood, and, 
in all likelihood, he had visited Newbery in his 
apartments at Canonbury House, of which 
nothing now remains but the dilapidated tower. 
He may even have lived in the tower itself pre- 
vious to this date, for Francis Newbery, New- 
bery's son, affirmed that he lodged for some 
time in the upper story, " the situation so com- 
monly devoted to poets." ^ But that he came 
to Islington at the close of 1762 is clear from 
the Newbery papers, to which, when they wrote 

1 Welsh's Bookseller of the Last Century, 1885, p. 46. 



A Memoir 105 

their respective lives of Goldsmith, Mr. John 
Murray permitted both Mr. Forster and Mr. 
Prior to have access. He had a room in a 
house kept by a Mrs. Elizabeth Fleming, who, 
like his Fleet Street landlady, was a friend or 
relative of Newbery. The bookseller, indeed, 
was paymaster, deducting, with business-like 
regularity, the amount for Goldsmith's keep and 
incidental expenses, from the account current 
between the poet and himself. The " board 
and lodging" were at the rate of ^5° per an- 
num, and Goldsmith stayed at Mrs. Fleming's 
from Christmas, 1762, untilJune, 1764, or later, 
the only break being from December, 1763, to 
March in the following year, when he appears 
to have rented, but not occupied, his Islington 
hermitage. 

It is curious in these days to study the chroni- 
cle of Goldsmith's frugal disbursements and 
hospitalities. Not many luxuries come within 
the range of Mrs. Fleming's recording pen. 
Once there is a modest " pint of Mountain " at 
a shilling, and twice " a bottle of port" at two 
shillings. A continually recurrent entry is the 
humble diet drink called " sassafras," more 
familiar perhaps as the " saloop," which, even 
at the beginning of this century, was still sold 
at street corners, prompting a characteristic page 



io6 Oliver Goldsmith 

of Charles Lamb's " Praise of Chimney Sweep- 
ers," and surviving later in " Sketches by Boz." 
Pens and paper are naturally frequent items, 
and the " Nev^es man's" account, to wit, for 
Public Ledgers, London Chronicles, Advertisers, 
and the like, reaches the unprecedented sum of 
1 6s. io|-d. On the other hand, "Mr. Bag- 
gott" and " Doctr. Reman" (Dr. Wm. Red- 
mond, says Prior), who seem to have been 
occasionally entertained with dinner or tea, 
have " O. O. O.," against their names. Ob- 
viously, Goldsmith must either have shared his 
own meal with his guests, or Mrs. Fleming 
must have been a person whose generosities, 
however stealthy, did not blush to find them- 
selves proclaimed in her bills. The only re- 
maining items worth noting are the price of " a 
Post Letter," which, as now, was a penny, and 
that of " The Stage Coach to London," which 
was sixpence. 

During most of the time over which these 
documents extend. Goldsmith must have been 
working for Newbery. The total amount paid 
by the bookseller from October, 1761, when 
Goldsmith purchased from him a set of Johnson's 
Idler, down to October 10, 1763, was;^iii is. 
6d. At this date £6^ had been earned by 
Goldsmith for " Copy of different kinds," leav- 



A Memoir 107 

ing a balance against him of ;^48 is. 6d., for 
which he gave a promissory note. The record 
of ascertained work for 1763 is very bare/ so 
that the "copy" must chiefly have been pref- 
aces, as for example, that to Brookes's " System 
of Natural History," or revisions of Newbery's 
numberless enterprises. Only one work, the 
two duodecimo volumes known as the *' History 
of England, in a Series of Letters from a Noble- 
man to his Son," can be identified as belonging 
to this time. " His friend Cook tells us," says 
Mr. Forster, " not only that he had really written 
it in his lodgings at Islington, but how and in 
what way he did so." Mr. Forster is here 
both right and wrong. As the " Letters of a 
Nobleman" were published in June, 1764, it is 
most likely that they were written at Islington ; 
but what Cook actually says is, that they were 
written in a country house on the Edgeware 
Road to which Goldsmith does not seem to have 
gone until much later. Cook's account of his 
composition of the letters may, however, be 
accepted as accurate. " His manner of com- 
piling this History was as follows : — he first 
read in a morning, from Hume, Rapin, and 

1 The facsimile, which forms the frontispiece to this 
volume, shows what was one of Goldsmith's many un- 
executed schemes. 



io8 Oliver Goldsmith 

sometimes Kennet, as much as he designed for 
one letter, marking down the passages referred 
to on a sheet of paper, with remarks. He then 
rode or walked out with a friend or two, who 
he constantly had with him, returned to dinner, 
spent the day generally convivially, without 
much drinking (which he was never in the habit 
of), and when he went up to bed took up his 
books and paper with him, where he generally 
wrote the chapter, or the best part of it, before 
he went to rest. This latter exercise cost him 
very little trouble, he said ; for having all his 
materials ready for him, he wrote it with as 
much facility as a common letter." ^ The book 
was a great success, in which the bookseller^s 
artifice of attributing it to a patrician pen no 
doubt played its part. For many years its easy, 
elegant pages were fathered upon Chesterfield, 
Lyttelton, or Orrery, much to the amusement 
of the real author. But his friends knew well 
enough who the real author was, and both Percy 
and Johnson possessed presentation copies. 
Moreover when afterwards Goldsmith came to 
write his longer '' History of England," for 
Davies of Russell Street, he transferred many 
passages bodily from the earlier compilation to 
its successor. 

1 European Magazine, August, 1793, p. 94- 



A Memoir 109 

Among the friends who visited Goldsmith at 
Islington there is reason for believing that Hogarth 
is to be numbered. When he had made Gold- 
smith's acquaintance is not know^n ; but Gold- 
smith had referred to him in " The Enquiry," 
and may have been introduced to him by John- 
son. The love of humour and character was 
strong in both ; but at this date they must have 
had an additional bond in their common dis- 
like of Churchill. It is pleasant to think that 
the great pictorial satirist of his age may have 
sometimes been the strolling companion of his 
gentler brother with the pen. Years ago Mr. 
Graves, of Pall Mall, had in his possession a 
portrait, said to be by Hogarth, which passed 
under the name of '^ Goldsmith's Hostess," and 
" it involves," says Mr. Forster, " no great 
stretch of fancy to suppose it painted in the 
Islington lodgings, at some crisis of domestic 
pressure."-^ As will be shown hereafter, there 
is no very trustworthy evidence that Mrs. 
Fleming was connected with any " domestic 
pressure ; " and the portrait, in all probability, 
had no graver origin than an act of kindness. 
In another picture, dating from this time, also 
attributed to Hogarth, which, when Mr. Forster 
wrote, belonged to a gentleman of Liver- 
1 Forster's Lifc^ 1877, i, 305. 



no Oliver Goldsmith 

pool/ Goldsmith is shown at work at a round 
table, perhaps engaged upon one of the identical 
epistles ascribed to Chesterfield. He is writing 
rapidly, or appears to be writing rapidly, in a 
claret-coloured coat, a night cap, and ruffles 
loose at the wrist ; but, despite Mr. Forster's 
description, he seems to be sitting for his like- 
ness rather than to have been sketched at work. 
The first entry in Mrs. Fleming's account 
for 1764 is an item of £1 17s. 6d. for the 
"Rent of the Room" for the March quarter 
in that year, an entry which proves conclusively 
that only by a figure of speech of the Dick 
Swiveller type could Goldsmith's retreat be 
described as " apartments." From the absence 
of other expenses, it is clear that he was not in 
residence, and he does not seem to have re- 
turned to Islington until the beginning of April. 
In the interim he lived in London. One of his 
occupations during this period must have been 
his weekly attendances at the new club just 
formed upon a suggestion of Reynolds, whom 
somebody, for that reason, christened its Romu- 
lus. Johnson, who had previously belonged to 
a kindred gathering in Ivy Lane, now lapsed 

1 The late Mr. Studley Martin, by whom it was ex- 
hibited in 1867 at the second special exhibition of National 
Portraits at South Kensington. 



A Memoir iii 

or interrupted by the dispersal of its members, 
fell easily into a proposition which accorded 
so thoroughly with his gregarious habits, and 
other congenial spirits were speedily collected. 
Edmund Burke and his father-in-law. Dr. Nu- 
gent, Topham Beauclerk and Bennet Langton, 
both of whom were scholars and fine gentlemen, 
Chamier, afterwards an Under Secretary of 
State, John Hawkins, a former member of the 
Ivy Lane Club, and Goldsmith himself, — soon 
made up (with Reynolds and Johnson) the nine 
members to which the association was at first 
restricted. But a certain Samuel Dyer, another 
member of the Ivy Lane Club, re-appearing 
unexpectedly from abroad, was allowed to join 
the ranks, and the number was ultimately ex- 
tended to twelve. The place of meeting was the 
Turk's Head in Gerrard Street, Soho, ^' where," 
says Mr. Forster, " the chair being taken every 
Monday night at seven o'clock by a member 
in rotation, all were expected to attend and sup 
together." ^ As time went on some further 
modifications were made in the rules ; but at 
Gerrard Street the club continued to meet as 
long as Goldsmith lived, and it was not until 
nearly ten years after his death that, with the 
closing of the Turk's Head, it shifted its quar- 
1 Forster's Lifet 1877, i, 310-11. 



112 Oliver Goldsmith 

ters. Such was the origin of the famous gath- 
ering, familiar in the pages of Boswell, and 
afterwards known — but not till many years 
afterwards — as the "Literary Club." A few 
of its first members were so illustrious that one 
can understand something of the astonishment 
with which solemn wiseacres like Hawkins 
beheld themselves associated with the still com- 
paratively unknown recruit from Mrs. Fleming's 
at Islington. " As he wrote for the booksellers, 
we, at the club," says he (but it would be prob- 
ably more accurate to read " I"), "looked on 
him as a mere literary drudge, equal to the task 
of compiling and translating, but little capable of 
original, and still less of poetical composition." ^ 
Pompous Sir John Hawkins may perhaps be 
forgiven for ignoring the fact that 

*' the music of the moon 
Sleeps in the plain eggs of the nightingale," — 

especially as Goldsmith had hitherto published 
no verse with his name. But a more authorita- 
tive judge than the Middlesex magistrate had 
already made deliverance upon the question. 
There was an eager young Scotchman of the 
name of James Boswell, who had decoyed 
Johnson into supping with him at The Mitre, 

1 Hawkins's Life of Johnson, 1787, p. 420. 



A Memoir 113 

and was already actively plying him with ques- 
tions. Among other things he sought his opin- 
ion with regard to Goldsmith^ whose apparently 
undeserved importance seems to have exercised 
him as much as it did Hawkins. On the literary 
side Johnson's answer was conclusive. " Dr. 
Goldsmith," he said, 'Ms one of the first men we 
now have as an author."^ These words were 
uttered in June, 1763, when Goldsmith's reputa- 
tion must have rested solely upon his labours as 
an essayist and compiler. For in that year he 
had not obtained distinction either as a poet, 
playwright, or novelist. 

From April to June, 1764, Mrs. Fleming's 
accounts, as already observed, show that Gold- 
smith was again at Islington. He was probably 
employed for Newbery, but in what way is un- 
certain. One anecdote, however, is definitely 
connected with the forthcoming poem of " The 
Traveller," upon which he must have occupied 
his leisure. Prior tells it as it was told by 
Reynolds to Miss Mary Horneck, from whom, 
when Mrs. Gwyn, Prior again received it. 
*' Either Reynolds," he says, " or a mutual 
friend who immediately communicated the story 
to him, calling at the lodgings of the Poet, 
opened the door without ceremony, and dis- 

1 Hill's Boswell's yi?^;2j^;?, 1887, i> 4o8. 



114 Oliver Goldsmith 

covered him, not in meditation, or in the throes 
of poetic birth, but in the boyish office of 
teaching a favourite dog to sit upright upon 
its haunches, or, as is commonly said, to beg. 
Occasionally he glanced his eye over his desk, 
and occasionally shook his finger at his unwill- 
ing pupil in order to make him retain his posi- 
tion, while on the page before him was written 
that couplet, with the ink of the second line 
still wet, from the description of Italy, 

* By sports like these are all their cares beguiled. 
The sports of children satisfy the child/ " 

Something of consonance between the verses 
and the writer's occupation, seems at once to 
have struck the visitor, and Goldsmith frankly 
admitted that the one had suggested the other. 

"The Traveller; or, a Prospect of Society, 
a Poem,'' was published on the 19th of Decem- 
ber, 1764,^ but the title-page, as is often the 

1 There is no doubt that this is the practical editio 
princeps, as it corresponds exactly with the description 
in the first advertisements. But a well-known book- 
collector, Mr. Locker-Lampson, possesses a copy, dated 
1764, which would seem to indicate that Goldsmith had 
not intended at first either to give prominence to his con- 
nection with the poem, or to write a lengthy prefatory letter. 
No author's name appears on the title-page of this unique 
copy, and the dedication is confined to two lines ; *' This 



A Memoir 115 

case, bore the date of the following year. It 
also announced that the book, published by 
Newbery as a thin eighteen-penny quarto^ was 
dedicated to the " Rev. Mr. Henry Goldsmith," 
and that it was " by Oliver Goldsmith, M.B." 
The dedication, which occupies nearly four 
pages, is extremely interesting. The book, it 
says, is inscribed to Henry Goldsmith because 
some portions were formerly written to him 
from Switzerland. " It will also throw a light 
upon many parts of it," continues the writer, 
*' when the reader understands that it is ad- 
dressed to a man, who, despising Fame and 
Fortune, has retired early to Happiness and 
Obscurity with an income of forty pounds a 
year," — such being the value of the curacy of 
Kilkenny West. Some of the passages that 
succeed are evidently dictated by the half- 
hopeful doubt of success which others besides 
Goldsmith have experienced. One of these, — 
the following, — was quietly dropped out of the 
subsequent editions, its anticipations, in the 
face of the favour with which the poem was 
received, being no longer appropriate. " But 
of all kinds of ambition, as things are now cir- 
cumstanced, perhaps that which pursues poetical 

Poem is inscribed to the Rev. Henry Goldsmith, M.A. 
By his most affectionate Brother Oliver Goldsmith." 



ii6 Oliver Goldsmith 

fame is the wildest. What from the encreased 
refinement of the times, from the diversity of 
judgments produced by opposing systems of 
criticism, and from the more prevalent divisions 
of opinion influenced by party, the strongest 
and happiest efforts can expect to please but in 
a very narrow circle. Though the poet were as 
sure of his aim as the imperial archer of an- 
tiquity, who boasted that he never missed the 
heart, yet would many of his shafts now fly at 
random, for the heart is too often in the wrong 
place." In the remainder of the dedication, 
the author renewed the assault which he had 
already made in the " Enquiry" upon the popu- 
larity of blank verse, and then proceeding to 
deplore the employment of poetry in the cause 
of faction, delivered himself of a thinly veiled 
attack upon the satires of Churchill — an attack 
which, seeing that Churchill had only been dead 
a few weeks, might well have been withheld. 
In his final words he defined the aim of his work : 
" I have endeavoured," he said, " to show, that 
there may be equal happiness in other states 
though differently governed from our own ; that 
each state has a peculiar principle of happiness, 
and that this principle in each state, and in our 
own in particular, may be carried to a mischiev- 
ous excess." In another form this thought is to 



A Memoir 117 

be found in the couplets which, recalling one of 
his own precepts in " Rasselas," Johnson sup- 
plied at the end of " The Traveller " : — 

" How small, of all that human hearts endure, 
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure. 
Still to ourselves in every place consign'd. 
Our own felicity we make or find." 

The fact that Johnson contributed these lines 
and a few others to the poem, seems to have 
favoured the suspicion that he had rendered 
considerable assistance to the writer, and his 
dogmatic interpretation of a word in the first line, 
while the real author was stammering and hesi- 
tating for his meaning, served to strengthen this 
idea, especially among persons of the Hawkins 
and Boswell type. But he distinctly told Bos- 
well that he could only remember to have written 
nine lines, four of which are quoted above ; and 
(as Prior points out) his inexperience of travel 
placed much of the rest beyond his ability. 
Yet there is little doubt that he considerably 
influenced the evolution of " The Traveller." 
In the first place, it is Johnson, not Pope or 
Dryden, who was Goldsmith's immediate model. 
The measure of the poem is the measure of 
"London" and *'The Vanity of Human 
Wishes," softened and chastened by a gentler 



ii8 Oliver Goldsmith 

touch and a finer musical sense. It was Jolin- 
son, too, Cook tells us,^ who persuaded Gold- 
smith to complete the fragment, some two 
hundred lines, or rather less than half the entire 
work, which he had so long kept by him. If 
conjecture is admissible in a matter of this 
kind, it would seem most probable that what 
Goldsmith had already written was the purely 
descriptive portions;^ that Johnson, so to 
speak, " moralised the song," and that, stimu- 
lated by his critical encouragement. Goldsmith 
fitted these portions into the didactic framework 
which finally became "The Traveller." But, 
however this may be, Johnson's admiration 
of the result was genuine. Not only did he 
show, by enthusiastic quotation long afterwards, 
that it lingered in his memory, but he welcomed 
the poem himself in The Critical Review^ and 
congratulated the public upon it " as on a pro- 
duction to which, since the death of Pope, it 
would not be easy to find anything equal." 

^ European Magazine, August, 1793, P* 93- 
2 In these, it has been suggested, he had Addison's 
" Letter from Italy," in mind, and a comparison of the 
two poems at once reveals certain similarities. More- 
over, that Goldsmith greatly admired the " Letter from 
Italy " is proved by the fact that he included it both in 
the " Poems for Young Ladies " and the '* Beauties of 
English Poesy." 



A Memoir 119 

What shall be said now to that "philosophic 
Wanderer" — as Johnson wished to christen 
him — who, in Wale's vignette to the old quarto 
editions, surveys a conventional eighteenth- 
century landscape from an Alpine solitude com- 
posed of stage rocks and a fir tree, and, in 
Macaulay's words, " looks down on the bound- 
less prospect, reviews his long pilgrimage, 
recalls the varieties of scenery, of climate, of 
government, of religion, of national character, 
which he has observed, and comes to the con- 
clusion, just or unjust, that our happiness de- 
pends little upon political institutions, and much 
on the temper and regulation of our own 
minds ? " ^ We take breath, and reply that we 
cannot regard his conclusion as wholly just, or 
accept it without considerable reservation. We 
see difficulties in the proposition that one 
government is as good as another, and we doubt 
whether the happiness of the governed is really 
so independent of the actions of the governing 
power. But what, to-day, most interests us 
in "The Traveller," is its descriptive and per- 
sonal rather than its didactic side. If Gold- 
smith's precepts leave us languid, his charming 
topography and his graceful memories, his 
tender retrospect, and his genial sympathy with 
1 Miscellaneous Writings, 1865, p. 302. 



I20 Oliver Goldsmith 

humanity still invite and detain us. Most of us 
know the old couplets, but what has Time taken 
from them of their ancient charm ? — 

" Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, 
My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee ; 
Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain. 
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. 

Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend. 
And round his dwelling guardian saints attend : 
Bless'd be that spot, where cheerful guests retire 
To pause from toil, and trim their ev'ning fire ; 
Bless'd that abode, where want and pain repair, 
And every stranger finds a ready chair : 
Bless'd be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd. 
Where all the ruddy family around 
Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail, 
• Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale, 
Or press the bashful stranger to his food, 
And learn the luxury of doing good. 

But me, not destin'd such delights to share, 
My prime of life in wand'ring spent and care ; 
Impell'd, with steps unceasing, to pursue 
Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view ; 
That, like the circle bounding earth and skies. 
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies ; 
My fortune leads to traverse realms alone, 
And find no spot of all the world my own." 

Equally well-remembered are the lines in 
which he records the humble musical perfor- 



A Memoir 121 

mances by which he won his way through 

France : — 

" To kinder skies, where gentler manners reign, 
I turn ; and France displays her bright domain. 
Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease, 
Pleas'd with thyself, whom all the world can please, 
How often have I led thy sportive choir, 
With tmieless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire ? 
Where shading elms along the margin grew. 
And, freshen'd from the wave the Zephyr flew ; 
And haply, though my harsh touch faltering still, 
But mock'd all tune, and marr'd the dancer's skill ; 
Yet would the village praise my wondrous power, 
And dance, forgetful of the noontide hour. 
Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days 
Have led their children through the mirthful maze 
And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore, 
Has frisk'd beneath the burthen of threescore." 

The description of Holland, " where the 
broad ocean leans against the land," and the 
lines on England, containing the familiar : — 

" Pride in their port, defiance in their eye 
I see the lords of human kind pass by," 

which his "illustrious friend" declaimed to 
Boswell in the Hebrides " with such energy, 
that the tear started into his eye," -^ might also 
find a place in a less-limited memoir than the 
1 Hill's Boswell's Johnson, 1887, v, 344. 



122 



Oliver Goldsmith 



present. Fortunately, however, there is no need 
to speak of a poem, which for three-quarters 
of a century has been an educational book, as 
if it were an undiscovered country. Nor can it 
add anything to a reputation so time-honoured 
to say that, when it first appeared, it obtained 
the suffrages of critics as various as Burke and 
Fox and Langton and Reynolds. The words 
of Johnson, spoken a century ago, are even 
truer now. Its merit is established ; and in- 
dividual praise or censure can neither augment 
nor diminish it. 

The first edition, as we have said, appeared 
in December, 1764. A second, a third, and a 
fourth followed rapidly. There was a fifth in 
1768, a sixth in 1770, and a ninth in 1774, the 
year of the author's death. He continued to 
revise it carefully up to the sixth edition, after 
which there do not seem to have been any 
further corrections. In one or two of the alter- 
ations, as in the cancelled passage in the dedi- 
cation, is to be detected that reassurance as to 
recognition which prompts the removal of all 
traces of a less sanguine or prosperous past. In 
his first version he had spoken of his *' ragged 
pride." In the second, this went the way of 
that indiscreet Latin quotation, which in the 
first edition of the ''Enquiry" betrayed the 



A Memoir 123 

pedestrian character of his continental experi- 
ences. But though the reception accorded to 
" The Traveller " was unmistakeable, even from 
the publisher's point of view, there is nothing to 
show with absolute certainty that its success 
brought any additional gain to its author. The 
original amount paid for "Copy of the Trav- 
eller, a Poem," as recorded in the Newbery 
MSS., is ;f2i. There is no note of anything 
further ; although, looking to the fact that the 
same sum occurs in some memoranda of a much 
later date than 1764, it is just possible (as Prior 
was inclined to believe) that the success of the 
book may have been followed by a supplemen- 
tary fee. 



CHAPTER VII 

"Essays: by Mr. Goldsmith" published, June 4, 1765; the 
poetical essays ; makes acquaintance with Nugent ; visits 
Northumberland House; "Edwin and Angelina" privately 
printed; resumes practice as a physician ; episode of Mrs. 
Sidebotham; "The Vicar of Wakefield" published, March 
27, 1766; Boswell's "authentic" account of the sale of the 
manuscript ; variants of Mrs. Piozzi, Hawkins, Cumberland, 
and Cook ; attempt to harmonise the Johnson story and the 
Collins purchase ; date of composition of book ; its charac- 
teristics ; theories of Mr. Ford ; bibUography and sale. 

/^NE of the results of that sudden literary 
^^ importance, which excited so much as- 
tonishment in the minds of the less discriminat- 
ing of Goldsmith's contemporaries, was the 
inevitable revival of his earlier productions ; 
and in June, 1765, Griffin of Fetter Lane put 
forth a three-shilling duodecimo of some two 
hundred and thirty pages under the title of 
"Essays: by Mr. Goldsmith." It bore the 
motto ^' Collecta revirescunt,'' and was embel- 
lished by a vignette from the hand of Bewick's 
friend and Stothard's rival, the engraver Isaac 
Taylor. In a characteristic preface Goldsmith 



A Memoir 125 

gave his reasons for its publication. *' Most of 
these essays," he said, "have been regularly 
reprinted twice or thrice a year, and conveyed 
to the public through the kennel of some en- 
gaging compilation. If there be a pride in 
multiplied editions, I have seen some of my 
labours sixteen times reprinted, and claimed by 
different parents as their own." And then he 
goes on, in a humourous anecdote, to vindicate 
his prior claim to any profit arising from his 
performances, finally winding up by a burlesque 
draft upon Posterity, which, as it is omitted in 
the second edition of 1766, may be reprinted 
here : " Mr. Posterity. Sir, Nine hundred 
and ninety-nine years after sight hereof, pay 
the bearer, or order, a thousand pounds' worth 
of praise, free from all deductions whatsoever, 
it being a commodity that will then be very 
serviceable to him, and place it to the accompt 
of, &c." 

The majority of the papers contained in this 
volume have already been referred to in the 
preceding pages. Such are the " Reverie at 
the Boar's Head," the " Adventures of a Stroll- 
ing Player," the " Distresses of a Common 
Soldier," and the " Beau Tibbs " sequence, 
only two of which it reproduces. There are 
others from The Bee, The Busy Body, and The 



126 Oliver Goldsmith 

Lady's Magazine. But the freshest contribu- 
tion consists of a couple of poems, which figure 
at the end as Essays xxvi. and xxvii. One is 
" The Double Transformation," an obvious imi- 
tation of that easy manner of tale-telling, which 
Prior had learned from La Fontaine. Prior's 
method, however, is more accurately copied 
than his manner, for nothing is more foreign to 
Goldsmith's simple style than the profusion of 
purely allusive wit with which the author of 
"Alma" decorated his Muse. The other is 
an avowed imitation of Swift, entitled " A New 
Simile " ; but it is hardly as good as " The Logi- 
cians Refuted," while indirectly it illustrates 
the inveteracy of that brogue which Goldsmith 
never lost, and, it is asserted, never cared to 
lose. No one but a confirmed Milesian would, 
we imagine, rhyme "stealing" and "failing." 
Elsewhere he scans " Sir Charles," " Sir 
Chorlus," after the manner of Captain Costigan ; 
and more than once he pairs sounds like 
'' sought " and " fault," a peculiarity only to be 
explained by a habit of mispronunciation.-^ 

One of the friends he had made by " The 

Traveller" was, like himself, an Irishman. 

This was Robert Nugent of Carlanstown, in 

Goldsmith's own county of Westmeath (not to 

1 This, however, is also done by Pope and Prior. 



A Memoir 127 

be confounded with Dr. Nugent, Burke's 
father-in-law), who, two years later, was to be 
created Viscount Clare. ^ Nugent was a poet 
in his way, — there are a number of his early 
verses in vol. ii. of Dodsley's " Collection ; " — 
and his ode to William Pulteney was good 
enough to be quoted by Gibbon. His Essex 
seat (Gosfield) became a frequent asylum to 
Goldsmith, who wrote for his friend a charming 
occasional poem, to which reference will be 
made hereafter. But for the present the most 
notable thing connected with Nugent is that he 
introduced Goldsmith to the notice of the Earl 
of Northumberland, then Lord-Lieutenant of 
Ireland, who, says Percy, being newly returned 
from that country in 1764, *' invited our poet to 
an interview."" It is supposed, though the 
"Percy Memoir" is here a little confusing, 
that this interview was the same as one of which 
Sir John Hawkins gives the following account : 
" Having one day," he says, " a call to wait 
on the late Duke, then Earl, of Northumber- 
land, I found Goldsmith waiting for an audience 
in an outer room ; I asked him what had brought 
him there : he told me an invitation from his 
lordship. I made my business as short as I 

1 A Memoir of Robert^ Lord Nugent (his last title), was 
issued in 1898 by his descendant, Mr. Claud Nugent. 



128 Oliver Goldsmith 

could, and, as a reason, mentioned that Dr. 
Goldsmith was waiting without. The Earl 
asked me if I was acquainted with him : I told 
him I was, adding what I thought likely to 
recommend him. I retired, and staid in the 
outer room to take him home. Upon his com- 
ing out, I asked him the result of his conver- 
sation. ' His lordship,' says he, ' told me he 
had read my poem ' meaning ' The Traveller,' 
' and was much delighted with it ; that he was 
going Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and that, 
hearing that I was a native of that country, he 
should be glad to do me any kindness.' ' And 
what did you answer,' asked I, ' to this gracious 
offer?' 'Why,' said he, ' I could say nothing 
but that I had a brother there, a clergyman, 
that stood in need of help : as for myself, I have 
no dependence on the promises of great men : 
I look to the booksellers for support ; they are 
my best friends, and I am not inclined to for- 
sake them for others.' " One can imagine what 
kind of effect this entirely unsophisticated pro- 
ceeding would have upon the time-serving nar- 
rator of the anecdote ; and indeed, his indignation 
blazes out in the comment with which he con- 
cludes his story. "Thus," he exclaims, '^did 
this idiot in the affairs of the world, trifle with 
his fortunes, and put back the hand that was 



A Memoir 129 

held out to assist him 1 Other offers of a like 
kind he either rejected, or failed to improve, 
contenting himself with the patronage of one 
nobleman,^ whose mansion afforded him the 
delight of a splendid table, and a retreat for a 
few days from the metropolis." ^ 

Few people, probably, will take Hawkins's 
view of the matter, or, at all events, they will 
find it difficult to conceive that Goldsmith, being 
Goldsmith, could have acted in any different 
way. His acquaintanceship with the Earl and 
Countess does not however seem to have suf- 
fered on this account. Possibly it was fostered 
by Percy, who, as their kinsman, should, one 
would think, have been the first to introduce 
the poet to his illustrious relatives. But the 
'^ Percy Memoir," as stated above, distinctly 
assigns this office to Nugent. Percy's " Re- 
liques of Ancient Poetry," upon which he was 
then engaged, nevertheless, afforded opportunity 
for a further recognition of the poet by the 
Northumberlands. Out of many metrical dis- 
cussions with Percy had grown a ballad in old 
style, to which Goldsmith gave the name of 
*' Edwin and Angelina," although it was after- 

^ Nugent, as yet, was only " Mr." But Hawkins 
wrote his " Life of Johnson " many years after this date. 
2 Hawkins's Life of Johjtson, I'jdi'j, p. 419. 

9 



130 Oliver Goldsmith 

wards known as " The Hermit." The Coun- 
tess of Northumberland admired it so much, 
that a few copies, now of the rarest, were 
struck off for her benefit, and it was afterwards 
included in " The Vicar of Wakefield." Gold- 
smith took immense pains with this poem. The 
privately printed version differs considerably 
from that in the "■ Vicar " ; the text in the 
" Vicar" varies in the successive editions ; and 
there are other variations in the volume of 
selections in which he afterwards included it. 
With its author, "Edwin and Angelina" was 
always a favourite. " As to my ^Hermit,' that 
poem/' he told Cradock, "cannot be amended."^ 
And Hawkins only echoed contemporary opin- 
ion when he called it " one of the finest poems 
of the lyric kind that our language has to boast 
of." 2 We, who have heard so many clear- 
voiced singers since Goldsmith's time, can 
scarcely endorse that judgment, nor can we 
feel for it the enthusiasm which it excited when 
Percy's " Reliques " were opening new realms 
of freedom to those who had hitherto been 
prisoned in the trim parterres of Pope. At 
most we can allow it accomplishment and ease. 
But its sweetness has grown a little insipid, and 

1 Cradock's Literary Memoirs, 1828, iv, 286. 

2 Hawkins's Life of Johnson, 1787, p. 420, 



A Memoir 131 

its simplicity, to eyes unanointed with eigh- 
teenth-century sympathy, borders perilously 
upon the ludicrous. 

In the same year in which ^' Edwin and 
Angelina" was printed, Goldsmith again at- 
tempted to earn a livelihood as a physician. 
This step, prompted by the uncertainty of his 
finances, is said to have been recommended by 
Reynolds, by Mrs. Montagu (to whom he had 
recently become known), and other friends. 
Evidence of his resumed profession speedily 
appeared in his tailor's account book, which, 
under the date of June, 1765, records the pur- 
chase of purple silk small clothes, and the ortho- 
dox " scarlet roquelaure buttoned to the chin " 
at four guineas and a half. These excesses must 
have been productive of others, for, in the 
short space of six months, three more suits are 
charged for, and this expenditure involves the 
complementary items of wig, cane, sword, and 
so forth. After these followed a man-servant. 
But all this lavish equipment seems to have 
failed in securing a practice. We hear, indeed, 
of one patient, whose moving story is told by 
Prior as he had received it from a lady^ to 
whom Reynolds had related it : " He [Gold- 
smith] had been called in to a Mrs. Sidebotham, 

^ Mrs. Gwyn, vide post, p. 193. 



132 Oliver Goldsmith 

an acquaintance, labouring under illness, and 
having examined and considered the case, wrote 
his prescription. The quality or quantity of the 
medicine ordered, exciting the notice of the 
apothecary in attendance, he demurred to ad- 
minister it to the patient ; an argument ensued 
which had no effect in convincing either party 
of error, and some heat being produced by the 
contention, an appeal was at length made to 
the patient to know by whose opinion and 
practice she chose to abide. She, deeming the 
apothecary the better judge of the two from 
being longer in attendance, decided for him ; 
and Goldsmith quitted the house highly indig- 
nant, declaring to Sir Joshua he would leave 
off prescribing for friends. ' Do so, my dear 
Doctor/ replied Topham Beauclerk when he 
heard the story and afterwards jested with him 
on the subject ; ' whenever you undertake to 
kill, let it be only your enemies.'"'^ 

The next noteworthy occurrence in Gold- 
smith's life is the publication, on the 27th of 
March, 1766, in " two Volumes in Twelves," of 
the novel of " The Vicar of Wakefield." The 
imprint was " Salisbury : Printed by B. Collins ; 
For F. Newbery, in Pater-Noster-Row," by 
which latter it was advertised for sale, " Price 
1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 105. 



A Memoir 133 

6s. bound, or ^s. sewed." There was no author's 
name on the title-page, but the " Advertisement" 
was signed " Oliver Goldsmith." The motto 
*' Sperate miseri, cavete felices,'" is to be found 
in Burton's "Anatomy," from which store- 
house of quotation Goldsmith had probably 
borrowed it. Collins, the printer, it will be 
remembered, is the same person who, as related 
at the close of chapter v., had purchased a 
third share in the book for twenty guineas in 
October, 1762, more than three years before. 
That it was sold in this way is further confirmed 
by the fact that some years later, according to 
old accounts consulted by Mr. Welsh, it still 
belonged to Collins and two other sharehold- 
ers, those shareholders being John Newbery's 
successors and Johnson's friend Strahan. This 
story of the sale is perfectly in accordance with 
eighteenth-century practice ; and, except that it 
is difficult to understand why the book remained 
so long unpublished, calls for no especial remark. 
And even the delay in publication can be ex- 
plained by neglect on the author's part (not at 
all a fanciful supposition !) to put the finishing 
touches to work which had been already paid 
for. But the attraction of Mr. Welsh's dis- 
covery lies in its apparently destructive conflict 
with the time-honoured and picturesque narra- 



134 Oliver Goldsmith 

tive given (through Boswell) by Johnson, and 
by others for the most part deriving their data 
from him, of the original sale of the manuscript. 
It is as follows: — " I [Johnson] received one 
morning a message from poor Goldsmith that he 
was in great distress, and, as it was not in his 
power to come to me, begging that I would 
come to him as soon as possible. I sent him 
a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. 
I accordingly went as soon as I was drest, and 
found that his landlady had arrested him for his 
rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I 
perceived that he had already changed my guinea, 
and had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass be- 
fore him. I put the cork into the bottle, de- 
sired he would be calm, and began to talk to him 
of the means by which he might be extricated. 
He then told me that he had a novel ready for 
the press, which he produced to me. I looked 
into it, and saw its merit ; told the landlady I 
should soon return ; and having gone to a book- 
seller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Gold- 
smith the money, and he discharged his rent, 
not without rating his landlady in a high tone 
for having used him so ill." ^ 

Such is BoswelFs report, taken, as he says, 
''authentically" from Johnson's "own exact 
1 Boswell's Life of Johnson, 1791, i, 225. 



A Memoir 135 

narration." Elsewhere, recording a conversa- 
tion at Sir Joshua Reynolds's in April, ^ll^i he 
supplies some further particulars. " His ' Vicar 
of Wakefield,'" said Johnson, " I myself did 
not think would have had much success. It was 
written and sold to a bookseller before his 
* Traveller ' ; but published after ; so little ex- 
pectation had the bookseller from it. Had it 
been sold after ' The Traveller,' he might have 
had twice as much money for it, though sixty 
guineas was no mean price." Here, it will be 
observed, Johnson says "guineas" instead of 
'^ pounds." But '^ pounds " and " guineas," as 
Croker points out in one of his notes, were then 
convertible terms. The same story, or rather a 
story having for its central features Goldsmith's 
need, Johnson's aid, and the consequent sale of 
a manuscript, is told with variations by other 
writers. Mrs. Piozzi, for example, in her 
** Anecdotes of Johnson," 1786, pp. 119-20, 
makes him leave her house to go to Goldsmith's 
assistance ; but upon the question of the price, 
she only says that he brought back " some 
immediate relief." It is now known, however, 
that she did not make Johnson's acquaintance 
until January, 1765, and, looking to the express 
statement by Johnson that the "Vicar" was 
sold before the publication of " The Traveller " 



136 Oliver Goldsmith 

in December, 1764, is obviously at fault in one 
material point of her story. Hawkins, again, in 
his " Life of Johnson," 1787, pp. 420, 421, 
gives a jumbled version, which places the 
occurrence at Canonbury House, makes the 
bookseller Newbery, and the amount forty 
pounds. Lastly Cumberland, writing his garru- 
lous Memoirs, gives the incident as (he alleges) 
he had heard Dr. Johnson relate it "with in- 
finite humour." In this account the publisher is 
Dodsley ; the price "ten pounds only"; and 
piquancy is added by an unexpected detail. 
Goldsmith " was at his wit's-end how to wipe 
oif the score and keep a roof over his head, exr 
cept by closing with a very staggering proposal 
on her [his landlady's] part, and taking his 
creditor to wife, whose charms were very far 
from alluring, whilst her demands were extremely 
urgent." ^ 

The foregoing accounts, that of Hawkins 
excepted, profess to be based upon Johnson's 
narrative of the facts. From the only other 
actor in the drama. Goldsmith — if we except a 
wholly incredible statement to Boswell that he 
had received four hundred pounds for a novel, 
supposed to be "The Vicar of Wakefield" — 
there is nothing except the following passage in 

1 Memoirs y 1807, i, 372-3. 



A Memoir 137 

Cook's reminiscences, which, probably because 
it was hopelessly at variance with the generally 
accepted story, seems to have been entirely 
neglected by Goldsmith's biographers. Cook, 
doubtless, made some mistakes ; but he is 
certainly entitled to be heard by the side of 
Hawkins, Cumberland, and Mrs. Piozzi. 
'' The Doctor," he tells us, " soon after his 
acquaintance with Newbery, for whom he held 
' the pen of a ready writer,' removed to lodgings 
in Wine Office Court, Fleet-Street, where he 
finished his * Vicar of Wakefield,' and on which 
his friend Newbery advanced him twenty 
guineas : ' A sum,' says the Doctor, ' I was so 
little used to receive in a lump, that I felt my- 
self under the embarrassment of Captain Brazen 
in the play,^ '* whether I should build a priva- 
teer or a play-house with the money ! " ' " 2 \i 
will be noted that, in more than one particular, 
this account is confirmatory of the latest develop- 
ment of the story. It gives the value of a third 
share accurately ; it describes it as an advance ; 
it makes the advancer Newbery, and, by impli- 
cation, it places the occurrence in Wine Office 
Court, where Goldsmith lived to the end of 

1 7. e., in the " Recruiting Officer," Act v., Sc. 3. Gold- 
smith greatly admired Farquhar. 

2 European Magazijze, August, 1793, p. 92. 



138 Oliver Goldsmith 

1762, in October of which year, either at Salis- 
bury or London, Collins effected his purchase. 
Unless some further discoveries are made, it 
is not likely that the above discrepancies can be 
finally adjusted. But as the latest editor of 
Boswell has thrown no light upon the subject, 
and the latest biographer of Johnson has handed 
it over to the biographers of Goldsmith, it is 
scarcely possible to quit the question without 
suggestion of some kind. The fact of CoUins's 
purchase of a third share, resting as it does 
upon the evidence of his own account-books, 
which have been inspected by the present writer, 
is incontestable. The account of Johnson's 
sale of the manuscript, as Johnson, habitually 
"attentive to truth in the most minute particu- 
lars," originally gave it, is no doubt also 
essentially true, and its variations under other 
hands may be attributed in part to confused 
recollections of a confusing story. The mention 
of twenty guineas and forty pounds in two of 
the versions appears to indicate a confirmation 
of the sale by shares ; while the phrase " imme- 
diate relief" used by Mrs. Piozzi, and the 
"money for his relief" of Hawkins, suggest 
that Johnson may not have meant that he actu- 
ally obtained the whole of the sixty pounds or 
guineas, but only that he had agreed upon that 



A Memoir 139 

as the entire price, which he would have to do 
in order to establish the value of a share. If he 
only brought back part of the money, the case 
admits of plausible solution. Unless Boswell 
bungled terribly in his "exact narration," it is 
most improbable that the Collins sale preceded 
the Johnson sale. If it did, it involves, what is 
practically inadmissible, dishonesty on the part 
of Goldsmith or Johnson, in selling as a whole a 
book of which a part had already been disposed 
of. But if, on the other hand, the Johnson sale 
came before the Collins sale, the not unreasonable 
explanation would be that Johnson, called in, as 
he says, to Goldsmith's aid, went to Newbery 
or Strahan, settled upon the price of the manu- 
script, and procured for Goldsmith "immediate 
relief" in the shape of an advance for one or for 
two shares. The other share or shares would 
remain to be disposed of by the author, and so, 
either at Salisbury or London, the transfer to 
Collins would come about. The only objection 
to this supposition is, that it puts back the sale 
to 1762, instead of the usually accepted date of 
1764. But 1764 has only been chosen because 
it is the year of the publication of "The 
Traveller." And it is noticeable that Boswell, 
who made Johnson's acquaintance in May, 1763, 
does not speak of the incident as if it had 



I40 Oliver Goldsmith 

happened within his personal experience. On 
the other hand, in 1762, Goldsmith was at Wine 
Office Court, where, Cook says, he finished the 
book. At Wine Office Court, we believe, the 
occurrence took place. It is more likely that 
Johnson, close at hand in Inner Temple Lane, 
would come to Wine Office Court than to 
Islington ; and it is not likely that Mrs. Flem- 
ing, the only evidence concerning whom, viz., 
her accounts, goes to show that she was not a 
particularly grasping personage, would arrest 
Goldsmith for bills which were usually paid by 
her friend Mr. Newbery. In cases of this 
kind, it is necessary, as a first duty, to clear 
away structures that have been raised upon false 
data, and one of these is the traditional reputa- 
tion, as an arbitrary person, of poor Mrs. 
Fleming of Islington. For, if the sale by 
Johnson took place in London, and not at 
Islington, Mrs. Fleming is not concerned in it. 
But when Cook says that the "Vicar" was 
finished at Wine Office Court, it is probable that 
he is not strictly accurate. What is most likely 
is, that when Goldsmith's pressure came, it was 
sufficiently finished to be sold. That it was 
written, or being written, in 1762, appears from 
the reference in chap. xix. to The Auditor, 
which began its career in June of that year, and 



A Memoir 141 

from the mention in chap. ix. of the musical 
glasses then in vogue. But that it could not 
have been " ready for the press" is plain from 
the fact that the ballad of *' Edwin and Ange- 
lina," privately printed in 1765 for the Countess 
of Northumberland, and first published in the 
novel, does not seem to have been in existence 
until about 1764. Percy says that it was com- 
posed before his own " Friar of Orders Gray," 
which came out in the " Reliques of English 
Poetry" in 1765, and Hawkins speaks of it in 
terms which imply that its composition belongs 
to some period subsequent to the establishment 
of "the Club" at the beginning of 1764. *' He 
had, nevertheless^ unknown to us, written and 
addressed to the Countess, afterwards Duchess, 
of Northumberland, one of the finest poems of 
the lyric kind that our language has to boast of."^ 
Although it is impossible to fix an exact date for 
the writing of " Edwin and Angelina," the obvi- 
ous inference is that it must have been written 
after October 28, 1762, and consequently did 
not form part of the book as sold to Collins. 
Similarly, the " Elegy on a Mad Dog," the 
scene of which lies at Islington, may have been 
written there, and added to fill up. In short, 
the most reasonable supposition is that Gold- 
1 Hawkins's Life of Johnson^ 1787, p- 430. 



142 Oliver Goldsmith 

smith had practically written his novel when he 
sold it to Collins and Co., but that it required 
expansion to make up the " two volumes, 1 2mo," 
which he had promised. Probably — as men 
do with work that has been paid for — he put 
off making the necessary additions, and ulti- 
mately stopped a gap with " Edwin and Ange- 
lina," which he had written in the interim. 
This, by the way, would supply a new reason 
for the private printing of the ballad, namely, 
that Goldsmith wanted to use it, or had already 
used it, in the forthcoming '' Vicar of Wake- 
field." In any case, even when the novel was 
published, it does not seem to have been quite 
completed. Criticism has pointed out that it 
contains references showing that additions were 
intended which were never made. This is ex- 
actly what happens when a work is sold before it 
is fully finished. Moreover, it has been noticed 
by a writer in the Athenceum, on inspection of 
the first issue, that, even with the assumed addi- 
tions, the printers had evidently hard work to 
make up the required two volumes. This, and 
the difficulty of getting the author to supply the 
requisite " copy," may indeed be the true solu- 
tion of that long delay to publish, which has sur- 
prised so many of Goldsmith's biographers. 
Of the " Vicar " itself it is happily not neces- 



A Memoir 143 

sary to give any detailed account, still less to 
illustrate its beauties by what Mr. Lowell has 
somewhere called the Boeotian method of ex- 
tract. Dr. Primrose and his wife, Olivia and 
Sophia, Moses with his white stockings and 
black ribbon, Mr. Burchell and his immortal 
*' Fudge," My Lady Blarney and Miss Caro- 
lina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs — have all be- 
come household words. The family picture that 
could not be got into the house when it was 
painted ; the colt that was sold for a gross of 
green spectacles ; the patter about Sanchonia- 
thon, Manetho, Berosus, and Ocellus Lucanus, 
with the other humours of Mr. Ephraim Jenkin- 
son — these are part of our stock speech and 
current illustration. Whether the book is still 
much read it would be hard to say, for when a 
work has, so to speak, entered into the blood 
of a literature, it is often more recollected 
and transmitted by oral tradition than actually 
studied. But in spite of the inconsistencies of 
the plot, and the incoherencies of the story, it 
remains, and will continue to be, one of the first 
of our English classics. Its sweet humanity, 
its simplicity, its wisdom and its common-sense, 
its happy mingling of character and Christianity, 
will keep it sweet long after more ambitious, 
and in many respects abler, works have found 



144 Oliver Goldsmith 

their level with the great democracy of the 
forgotten. 

It is the property of a masterpiece to gather 
about it a literature of illustration and interpreta- 
tion, especially when, as in the present case, its 
origin is unusually obscure. With the bulk of 
this it would be impossible to deal here. But 
a recent speculation respecting the reasons for 
the choice of Wakefield as the locality of the 
tale (at all events at the outset), deserves a few 
sentences. Joseph Cradock, one of Goldsmith's 
later friends, had a story that the '* Vicar" was 
written to defray the expenses of a visit to Wake- 
field. How irreconcilable this is with the other 
accounts is self-evident. But it is not impossi- 
ble that an actual tour in Yorkshire may have 
suggested some of the names and incidents. 
This idea was worked out with great ingenuity 
by the late Mr. Edward Ford, of Enfield.^ 
Starting from Wakefield, he identified the ^' small 
cure " seventy miles off, to which Dr. Primrose 
moves in chap, iii., vol. i., with Kirkby Moor- 
side in the North Riding. This point estab- 
lished, Welbridge Fair, where Moses sells the 
colt (chap. xii. and chap, vi., vol. ii.), easily 
becomes Welburn ; Thornhill Castle, a few 
miles further, stands for Helmsley ; " the wells" 

1 National Review, May, 1883. 



A Memoir 145 

(chap, xviii.) for Harrogate, and *'the races" 
(ibid.) for Doncaster. The '^ rapid stream " in 
chap, iii., where Sophia was nearly drowned, 
he conjectures to have been near the confluence 
of the Swale and Ouse at Boroughbridge, 
" within thirty miles " (p. 21) of Kirkby Moor- 
side ; and the county gaol in chap, v., vol. ii., 
he places '* eleven miles off" (p. 86) at Picker- 
ing. But for the further details of this attrac- 
tive if inconclusive inquiry, as well as the 
conjectural identification of Sir William Thorn- 
hill, with the equally eccentric Sir George 
Savile, and of the travelling limner of chap, xvi., 
vol. i., with Romney the artist, the reader is 
referred to the article itself. 

The first edition of the '' Vicar," it will be 
remembered, was published on March 27, 1766. 
A second edition, containing some minor modi- 
fications, one of the most important of which 
was the reiteration, with great effect, of Mr. 
Burchell's famous comment, followed in May, 
and a third in August. In the same year there 
were also two unauthorised reprints of the 
first edition, one of which was published at 
Dublin, the other in London. After this there 
seems to have been a lull in the demand, for 
the fourth edition is dated 1770 ; and, accord- 
ing to Collins's books, started with a loss. The 

10 



146 Oliver Goldsmith 

profits of this seem to have been so doubtful 
that, before the fifth edition appeared, Collins 
sold his third share to one of his colleagues for 
five guineas. The fifth edition, which did not 
actually appear until April, 1774, is dated 1773. 
This would indicate that the previous issue was 
not exhausted until early in the following year. 
The sixth edition is dated 1779. Thus, assum- 
ing the fifth to have been, like the fourth edition, 
limited to one thousand copies, it took nearly 
nine years to sell two thousand copies. No rival 
of any importance was in the field, until, in 1778^ 
Miss Burney published her "Evelina;" and 
the languor of the sale must be attributed to 
some temporary suspension of public interest 
in the " Vicar." Meanwhile, translations into 
French and German, to be followed in due time 
by translations into almost every European lan- 
guage,^ were laying the foundation of its cos- 
mopolitan reputation, and its modern admirers 
still take pleasure in recollecting that among the 
most famous of their predecessors was Goethe. 
" It is not to be described," he wrote to Zelter 
in 1830, *' the effect which Goldsmith's ' Vicar' 

1 " A Bibliographical List of Editions of * The Vicar 
of Wakefield' published in England and abroad/' is 
prefixed to Elliot Stock' s facsimile reprint of 1885, pp. 
xxii-xxxix. 



A Memoir 147 

had upon me just at the critical moment of 
mental development. That lofty and benevolent 
irony, that fair and indulgent view of all infirmi- 
ties and faults, that meekness under all calami- 
ties, that equanimity under all changes and 
chances, and the whole train of kindred virtues, 
whatever names they bear, proved my best 
education ; and in the end, these are the thoughts 
and feelings which have reclaimed us from all 
the errors of life."^ 

^ See also Miscellanies, by the present Author, 1898, 
pp. 165-182, for a paper on " The ' Vicar of Wakefield' 
and its Illustrators." 



CHAPTER VIII 

"The Vicar" and "The Traveller" as investments; transla- 
tion of Formey's " History of Philosophy and Philosophers " 
published, June, 1766; "Poems for Young Ladies" pub- 
lished, December 15 ; English Grammar written; " Beauties 
of English Poesy" published, April, 1767; letter to the 6"/. 
James's Chronicle^ July; living at Canonbury House; at the 
Temple; visited by Parson Scott; "Roman History"; the 
Wednesday Club ; popularity of genteel comedy ; plans a 
play ; story of *' The Good Natur'd Man ; " its production at 
Covent Garden, January 29, 1768; its reception ; Goldsmith 
on the first night ; his gains ; Davies on the dramatis per- 
sonce; Johnson on Goldsmith. 

r^ OLDSMITH'S biographers have laid stress 
^^ upon the fact that there is no record 
of any payment to him for the *' Vicar of 
Wakefield," subsequent to that original sixty 
pounds, or guineas, whereof mention was made 
in the foregoing chapter ; and they have not 
failed to remark, with a certain air of righteous 
indignation, that, on May 24, 1766, close upon 
the publication of the second edition, a bill 
drawn by him upon John Newbery for fifteen 
guineas was returned dishonoured. Some in- 



A Memoir 149 

dignation would be intelligible, and perhaps 
justifiable, had the book been a pecuniary suc- 
cess, which, of course, was their assumption, — 
an assumption based upon the rapid appearance 
of three editions. But, if Collins's accounts 
are to be accepted, and the chief objection to 
them is their contradiction of time-honoured 
traditions, the " Vicar," in spite of those three 
issues (of how many copies we are ignorant), 
was not paying its proprietors, — in other 
words, they had not yet recovered the jTfio they 
had laid out upon the manuscript. No other 
interpretation can be placed upon the statement 
of Mr. Welsh, who says, " The fourth edition 
[of 1770] started with a balance against it.^ 
This being so, no ground existed for any gener- 
osity from the proprietors to the author. On 
the other hand, " The Traveller " was a success. 
It had reached a fourth edition in August, 1765, 
and in a memorandum by Goldsmith printed by 
Prior, and dated June 7, 1766, there is an item 
of ;^2i for ^' The Traveller." It is scarcely 
possible that this can refer to the first payment 
made as far back as 1764, and it may therefore 
be assumed, not unreasonably, that it was an 
additional payment arising out of the success of 
the poem. If this be the case, the circum- 

1 A Bookseller of the Last Century, 1885, p. 61. 



150 Oliver Goldsmith 

stances as regards the two books become 
perfectly logical, and neither surprise nor indig- 
nation is called for. The fourth edition of " The 
Vicar " started with a loss, and there were no 
profits for anybody ; the fourth edition of " The 
Traveller" had paid its expenses with a fair 
surplus, and there was a bonus of twenty 
guineas for the author. 

But a dubious twenty-guinea bonus upon the 
sale of a popular poem is scarcely opulence, and 
Goldsmith was still obliged to depend upon the 
old ''book-building." Between the appearance 
of the second and third editions of the " Vicar," 
there was issued by the "Vicar's" publisher, 
Francis Newbery, a translation of a " History 
of Philosophy and Philosophers," by M. For- 
mey of Berlin, whose " Philosophical Miscel- 
lanies " Goldsmith had reviewed for Smollett in 
The Critical Review. For this, in pursuance of 
some occult arrangement between the New- 
berys, John Newbery paid — the sum being 
;^20. Later in the year Goldsmith prepared 
for Payne of Paternoster Row, but without his 
name as editor, a selection of " Poems for 
Young Ladies," the ''Moral" department of 
which led off with his own " Edwin and Ange- 
lina," a circumstance which lends a certain 
piquancy to the artless statement in the preface 



A Memoir 151 

that '' every poem in the following collection 
would singly have procured an author great 
reputation." Following hard upon the publica- 
tion of this in December, comes the record of a 
*' short English Grammar" for Newbery ; and 
then was prepared for Griffin " The Beauties of 
English Poesy," in two volumes, for which selec- 
tion, with the addition of his name on the title- 
page, he was paid £^0^ or only £\o less than 
the sum he obtained for the " Vicar," an original 
work. His " original work" in this was con- 
fined to a preface, and brief introductory notes. 
But the success of this otherwise excellent 
anthology was prejudiced considerably by the 
presence in it of two of Prior's most hazardous 
pieces, the " Ladle" and '* Hans Carvel," an 
intrusion all the more unwarrantable, because 
Prior's somewhat meagre individuality was 
already sufficiently represented by his poem of 
"Alma." 

Not many months after the publication of the 
** Beauties," and prompted, it may be, by the 
reappearance of '• Edwin and Angelina," in 
the " Poems for Young Ladies," Kenrick, Gold- 
smith's successor on The Monthly Review, and 
his persistent assailant, took occasion to bring 
against him a charge of gross plagiarism. A 
letter signed "Detector" appeared in the St, 



152 Oliver Goldsmith 

James's Chronicle in which he was accused of 
taking" The Hermit" {"• Edwin and Angelina") 
direct from Percy's " Friar of Orders Gray,'' 
with this difference only, that he had substituted 
"languid smoothness" and "tedious para- 
phrase " for the "natural simplicity and tender- 
ness of the original." Several of the stanzas in 
the " Friar" are the beautiful snatches sung by 
Ophelia in her insanity, and Goldsmith might 
well have been absolved from improving upon 
them. But to the general charge of theft he 
replied conclusively in a letter to the Chronicle^ 
of which the following is the material portion : 
"Another Correspondent of yours accuses me 
of having taken a Ballad, I published some Time 
ago, from one by the ingenious Mr. Percy. I 
do not think there is any great Resemblance 
between the two Pieces in Question. If there 
be any, his Ballad is taken from mine. I read 
it to Mr. Percy some Years ago, and he (as 
we both considered these Things as Trifles at 
best) told me, with his usual Good Humour, 
the next Time I saw him, that he had taken my 
Plan to form the fragments of Shakespeare into 
a Ballad of his own. He then read me his 
little Cento, if I may so call it, and I highly 
approved it. Such petty Anecdotes as these are 
scarce worth printing, and were it not for the 



A Memoir 153 

busy Disposition of some of your Correspon- 
dents, the Publick should never have known 
that, he ov^^es me the Hint of his Ballad, or that 
I am obliged to his Friendship and Learning for 
Communications of a much more important 
Nature." ^ The reply is perfect in tone, and 
shows once more how unfailing was Goldsmith's 
skill when he took pen in hand. Percy, it may 
be added, confirmed this story^ with but little 
variation, in a note which he appended to the 
'' Friar of Orders Gray " in the 177^ edition of 
the " Reliques," and also in the '' Memoir "of 
Goldsmith, prefixed to the " Miscellaneous 
Works" of 1 801. 

About the middle of 1767 Goldsmith seems to 
have again taken up his residence at Islington, 
and this time it is definitely asserted that he 
lived in Canonbury House. The old tower of 
Queen Elizabeth's hunting lodge was a favourite 
summer resort of literary men, publishers, and 
printers, and, as already stated, John Newbery 
himself, who died in December of this year, 
was one of its most frequent inmates. Indeed, 
some last business instructions drawn up by him 
in November are dated " Canbury House," and 
the notice of his death in The Public Advertiser 
affirms that it actually occurred there. But 
1 Si. James's C/iromWe, July 23-5, 1767. 



154 Oliver Goldsmith 

whether Goldsmith now occupied that '* upper 
story so commonly devoted to poets," or 
tenanted, either on his own account, or as 
Newbery's substitute, the old oak-panelled 
room on the first floor, long shown to visitors as 
his, history sayeth not with any certainty. That 
he attended, and occasionally presided at a club, 
largely recruited from the lettered and quasi- 
lettered occupants of Canonbury Tower, which 
was held at the Crown Tavern in the Islington 
Lower Road, may be more safely assumed. 
When in London, he occupied new quarters in 
the Temple, to which he had moved from his 
old home in Fleet Street. These were in Gar- 
den Court, an address that figures at the head 
of one of his letters to Colman, dated July the 
19th, and hence, in all probability, he penned 
his letter to the Chronicle. According to Prior 
his apartments were on the library staircase, and 
he shared them with one Jeffs, butler to the 
Society. Consequently there is no record of 
his residence in the books. Nor is there any 
record of the somewhat superior lodging in 
King's Bench Walks to which he removed a 
little later, where he was again, apparently, the 
tenant of a private owner. Neither of these 
retreats was of imposing character, and Gold- 
smith's ready susceptibility took alarm when he 



A Memoir 155 

saw Johnson blinking about, in his short-sighted 
way, at his friend's environment. '* I shall soon 
be in better chambers than these,'* he said, 
apologetically. But his sturdy old mentor was 
down upon him at once with a " Nay, Sir, never 
mind that: Nil ie qucesiveris extra,'' '^ 

To another of his Temple visitors Goldsmith 
behaved with greater dignity. Towards the close 
of this same year of 1767 an attempt was made 
to enlist his pen in the service of that *' party," to 
which, in the " dedication " of " The Traveller/' 
he had referred as one of the enemies of his art. 
The North Administration, harassed by Wilkes, 
and goadedby the far more terrible "Junius," 
was casting about helplessly for literary cham- 
pions, and overtures were accordingly made to 
Goldsmith by Sandwich's chaplain. Parson Scott, 
known to the contemporary caricaturist as 
" Twitcher's Advocate," a title he had earned 
by his support of his patron under the mm de 
guerre of Anti-Sejanus. Scott had already 
reaped the benefit of his "venal pen" by pre- 
sentation to the living of Simonburn, in North- 
umberland, and appomtment as Chaplain of 
Greenwich Hospital. The sequel of his visit to 
Goldsmith may be told in his own words : " I 
found him," said Dr. Scott to Basil Montagu, 
1 Hill's Boswell's Johnson, 1887, iv> 27. 



156 Oliver Goldsmith 

** in a miserable set of chambers in the Temple. 
I told him my authority ; I told him that I was 
empowered to pay most liberally for his exer- 
tions ; and, would you believe it! he was so 
absurd as to say, ' I can earn as much as will 
supply my wants without writing for any party ; 
the assistance you offer is therefore unnecessary 
to me.' And so I left him," added Dr. Scott, 
"in his garret."-^ The contempt of the pros- 
perous timeserver was to be anticipated, though 
Goldsmith's admirers will doubtless take a dif- 
ferent view of the matter. 

But when Goldsmith told Lord North's emis- 
sary that he was earning enough for his wants, 
it is to be feared that the statement, like his 
earlier announcement to Beatty of his prosperity 
as a physician in Southwark, was a palpable 
exaggeration. Of lucrative work during 1767 
there is scant indication. What he did for his 
old employer, Newbery, amounted to little ; 
and Newbery, it has been shown, was ill or dy- 
ing in the latter months of this year. Yet a turn 
for the better was coming in Goldsmith's life, 
and during part of 1766 and 1767 he had been 
engaged in a new enterprise, of which an ac- 
count will presently be given. In addition, 
about this time, a somewhat more prosperous 
1 Forster's Life, 1877, ii, 71. 



A Memoir 157 

way of compilation was opened by a proposal 
of the bookseller, Thomas Davies, whose 
** very pretty wife " is celebrated in the verse of 
Churchill. Davies had been shrewd enough to 
observe that the '^ Letters from a Nobleman to 
his Son " of two years before, still freely given 
to literary lords like Chesterfield and Orrery, 
had lost none of their real popularity or their 
fictitious prestige, and he hit upon the happy 
idea of proposing to Goldsmith to write a 
Roman History upon the same pattern. The 
honorarium was to be two hundred and fifty 
guineas. There were to be two volumes, to be 
finished in two years or less. As the book 
was published in May, 1769, it must be as- 
sumed that it had, or should have, begun to 
employ Goldsmith actively in the later months 
of 1767. 

There is little record of his other occupations. 
Doubtless, when in London, he was assiduous 
in his attendance at the Turk's Head, in Gerrard 
Street, on the Mondays when the club held its 
sittings. But he was probably more at home 
in resorts like the Crown, in the Islington 
Lower Road, where the company was less pre- 
tentious. One of these "free and easys," de- 
scribed by Mr. Forster from the manuscript 
notes of a certain William Ballantyne, lent to 



158 Oliver Goldsmith 

him by Mr. Bolton Corney, went by the name 
of the " Wednesday Club," and was held at the 
Globe Tavern, in Fleet Street. Among its 
frequenters were several of Goldsmith's country- 
men—Glover, a doctor and actor; Thompson, 
who edited Andrew Marvel ; and Hugh Kelly, 
a staymaker turned rhymester, who was imitat- 
ing ChurchilFs " Rosciad " in a poem called 
" Thespis," and was shortly to become the 
pillar of sentimental comedy. Of the other 
members chronicled in Ballantyne's notes, the 
most memorable was a Mr. Gordon, a huge 
man, whom, to use Falstaff's words, ''sighing 
and grief had blown up like a bladder," and who 
used to delight Goldsmith by singing a thor- 
oughly appropriate song, called " Nottingham 
Ale." But it was noted, even at this time, that 
the old fits of silence and depression, which his 
relatives had remarked in his childhood, still 
haunted him. *' He has often," says Glover, 
'* left a party of convivial friends abruptly in the 
evening, in order to go home and brood over 
his misfortunes."^ Washington Irving's more 
charitable explanation is, that he went home to 
note down some good thing for his forthcoming 
comedy. But the hopes and fears connected 
with that enterprise were of themselves sufficient 
1 Life prefixed to Poems and Flays ^ i777> PP* ix-x. 



A Memoir 159 

to cause depression, and to the story of those 
hopes and fears we now come. 

Goldsmith had always been a fervent lover of 
the stage. As already stated, there are tradi- 
tions that he had composed a tragedy, which he 
had submitted in manuscript to Richardson ; 
and in the " Enquiry," The Bee, " The Citizen 
of the World," and even in the " Vicar," he had 
frequently expressed his opinions upon matters 
theatrical, certainly with the knowledge, if not 
of a dramatist, at least of a shrewd and common- 
sense critic. At this date what, in addition to 
pantomime and spectacle, found most favour 
in England, was *' genteel" or "sentimental 
comedy." This was the English equivalent for 
the comedie serieuse or larmo/ante, which, initi- 
ated in France by La Chaussee, had recently 
been most happily exemplified in that country 
by Sedaine's Philosophe sans le sapoir. Accord- 
ing to Diderot, this school had for its object 
not so much the satire of vice as the glorifica- 
tion of virtue — by virtue being meant more 
particularly the virtues of private and domestic 
life. Steele, at the beginning of the century, 
had attempted something of the kind in "The 
Funeral" and "The Lying Lover"; but the 
new French school, whose influence was now 
being felt on this side the Channel, had arisen 



i6o Oliver Goldsmith 

long after he had ceased his labours as a drama- 
tist. Goldsmith's views, it need scarcely be 
said, were entirely opposed to the prevailing 
fashion of comedy. He was, he tells us, 
strongly prepossessed in favour of the authors 
of the last age. Nature and humour, he con- 
tended, in whatever walks of life they were 
most conspicuous, should be the chief ends of 
the playwright, and the delineation of character 
his principal duty. By reason of the ultra- 
refinement and insipid unreality of the new 
manner, these things, in his opinion, were in a 
fair way to disappear from the stage altogether ; 
and when, at the beginning of 1766, the success 
of " The Clandestine Marriage," which Colman 
and Garrick had adapted from Hogarth's most 
famous picture-drama, seemed to promise some 
chance of a reaction in the public taste, he 
straightway set to work upon a comedy on the 
elder English model. He appears to have 
wrought at it during 1766, in the intervals of his 
other literary work, and he had completed it 
early in 1767, when it was submitted to some of 
his friends, who approved it. Johnson under- 
took to write a prologue, and thereupon began 
the indispensable and traditionally wearisome 
negotiations for getting it placed upon the 
boards. 



A Memoir i6i 

At this time Garrick was manager of Drury 
Lane. To Garrick, however, Goldsmith had 
not intended to apply. He knew that he had 
offended the all-powerful actor by certain pas- 
sages still on record in the ''Enquiry," and 
Garrick had shown his sense of this by refusing 
his vote when Goldsmith was a candidate for 
the secretaryship of the Royal Society. Un- 
happily, owing to the death of its manager Rich, 
the affairs of the rival theatre of Covent Gar- 
den were in temporary confusion. Goldsmith 
had therefore no choice but to address himself 
to Garrick, and Reynolds arranged a meeting 
between them at his house. As may be antici- 
pated, it was not entirely satisfactory. Gold- 
smith was sensitive and consequential ; Garrick 
courteous, but cautious. Nevertheless, there 
was an indefinite understanding that the play 
should be acted. The manac^er seems subse- 
quently to have blown hot and cold according 
to his wont. In reality, he did not like the 
piece, and he privately told Reynolds and John- 
son that he thought it would not succeed. To 
the author he was not equally frank, and thus 
misunderstandings multiplied. Meanwhile the 
theatrical season slipped away, and Goldsmith, 
who had counted upon the pecuniary profits of 
his work, grew impatient. Finally he asked 

II 



1 62 Oliver Goldsmith 

for an advance upon a note of the younger 
Newbery. This was readily granted ; but the 
boon was followed up by suggestions for altera- 
tions and omissions in the play — alterations 
and omissions which, it is unnecessary to say, 
were anything but palatable to the author. 
Arbitration was next spoken of, and, in this 
connection, William Whitehead, a man of very 
inferior calibre, whom Garrick occasionally 
employed as his reader, was named. There- 
upon, says Mr. Forster, " a dispute of so much 
vehemence and anger ensued, that the services 
of Burke as well as Reynolds were needed to 
moderate the disputants." 

But a sudden change in the state of affairs 
at the rival house, fortunately opened the way 
to a solution of these protracted differences. 
Colman, by a sequence of circumstances which 
do not belong to these pages, became one of 
the patentees of Covent Garden ; and Gold- 
smith seized the opportunity for offering him his 
comedy. He promptly received an encouraging 
reply. Forthwith he wrote to Garrick stating 
what he had done ; and in return was gratified 
with one of those formally cordial responses in 
which the actor was an adept. But he had not 
yet reached the end of his troubles. It was in 
July, 1767, that he wrote to Colman, and his 



A Memoir 163 

comedy could not be produced until Christmas. 
In the interval further complications arose. 
Garrick, already in hot competition with Co- 
vent Garden, was, naturally, not very favourably 
disposed to its newest dramatic writer ; and he 
accordingly, in opposition to Goldsmith's comedy, 
of which we may now speak by its name of 
*'The Good Natur'd Man," brought forward 
Hugh Kelly with a characterless sentimental 
drama called " False Delicacy." Before the 
end of the year the " whirligig of time " had 
reconciled him to Colman, and one result of 
this was, that the latter, whose interest in 
Goldsmith's piece had meanwhile somewhat 
cooled, consented tacitly to keep back " The 
Good Natur'd Man" until ''False Delicacy" 
had made its appearance. So it befell that, in 
January, 1768, when "The Good Natur'd 
Man " was going slowly through its last re- 
hearsals, '* False Delicacy" came out at Drury 
Lane with all the advantages of Garrick's con- 
summate generalship. A few days later " The 
Good Natur'd Man " was played for the first 
time at Covent Garden. Johnson's prologue 
turned out to be rather dispiriting ; and Powell, 
Garrick's handsome young rival, was, as the 
hero, cold and unsympathetic. On the other 
hand, Shuter, an excellent actor, proved inim- 



1 64 Oliver Goldsmith 

itable in the part of Croaker, a character 
planned upon the " Suspirius " of The Rambler, 
while Woodward was almost equally good as 
the charlatan, Lofty. The success of the piece, 
however, was only qualified, and one scene of 
" low " humour, in which some bailiffs were in- 
troduced, gave so much offence, that it was 
withdrawn after the first representation. 

Goldsmith, who, as his tailor's bills testify, 
had attended the first night in a magnificent 
suit of " Tyrian bloom satin grain, and garter 
blue silk breeches," ^ and whose hopes and 
fears had risen and fallen many times during 
the performance, was bitterly disappointed. 
Nevertheless, after hurriedly thanking Shuter, 
he vv^ent away to the club in Gerrard Street, 
laughed loudly, made believe to sup, and ulti- 
mately sang his own particular song. Years 
afterwards, however, the truth leaked out. 
Coming back one day from dining at the chap- 
lain's table at St. James's, Dr. Johnson told 
Mrs. Thrale that Goldsmith had been giving 
" a very comical and unnecessarily exact recital 
there of his own feelings when his play was 
hissed." He had told " the company how he 
went indeed to the Literary Club at night, and 
chatted gaily among his friends, as if nothing 
1 Forster's Life, 1877, ii, 112. 



A Memoir 165 

had happened amiss ; that to impress them still 
more forcibly with an idea of his magnanimity, 
he even sung his favourite song about an old 
woman tossed in a blanket seventeen times as 
high as the moon, but all this while I was suf- 
fering horrid tortures (said he), and verily 
believe that if I had put a bit in my mouth it 
would have strangled me on the spot, I was so 
excessively ill ; but I made more noise than 
usual to cover all that, and so they never per- 
ceived my not eating, nor, I believe, imaged 
to themselves the anguish of my heart ; but 
when all were gone except Johnson here, I 

burst out a-crying, and even swore by that 

I would never write again. ' All which. Doc- 
tor (says Mr. Johnson, amazed at his odd frank- 
ness), I thought had been a secret between you 
and me ! and I am sure I would not have said 
anything about it for the world.' " " No man," 
added Johnson, commenting upon his own 
story, '' should be expected to sympathise with 
the sorrows of vanity." ^ And then he went on 
to make some further remarks upon the subject 
which show once more how much easier are 
precepts than practice. 

''The Good Natur'd Man" was played for 
ten consecutive nights, being commanded on 

1 Hill's Johnsoniaii Miscellanies, 1897, i, 311-12. 



i66 Oliver Goldsmith 

the fifth by their Majesties. The third, the 
sixth, and the ninth nights were appropriated to 
the author. By these he made about ;^40o, to 
which the sale of the play in book form with the 
suppressed bailiff scene restored added another 
jQioo. It seems clear, notwithstanding, that 
the play was not such a success as it deserved 
to be ; and that much was done to protract its 
brief life by the author's friends. The taste for 
sentimental comedy, in fact, was still too strong 
to be overcome. Yet, as Davies points out, 
and Davies as a former actor is an authority, 
''The Good Natur'd Man" contains "two 
characters absolutely unknown before to the 
English stage; a man [Lofty] who boasts an 
intimacy with persons of high rank whom he 
never saw, and another, who is almost always 
lamenting misfortunes he never knew. Croaker 
[he asserts] is as strongly designed, and as 
highly finished a portrait of a discontented man, 
of one who disturbs every happiness he pos- 
sesses, from apprehension of distant evil, as any 
character of Congreve, or any other of our 
English dramatists." ^ It has already been said 
that the character of Croaker was built upon a 
sketch by Johnson in The Rambler. Once 
when Mrs. Thrale and Miss Burney were read- 

1 Life of David Qarrick, 1780, ii, 148-9. 



A Memoir 167 

ing this particular paper at Streatham, Johnson 
came upon them. " Ah, madam/' said he, 
" Goldsmith was not scrupulous ; but he would 
have been a great man had he known the real 
value of his own internal resources." ^ 

1 Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, 1892, i, 38. 



CHAPTER IX 

Moves to 2, Brick Court, Middle Temple ; relaxations and fes- 
tivities; the Seguin recollections; death of Henry Goldsmith; 
begins " The Deserted Village ; " methods of poetical com- 
position; "Shoemaker's Holidays;" Goldsmith's compan- 
ions; " The Shoemaker's Paradise" at Edgeware; Mr. Bott, 
the barrister ; old compilations and new ; epilogue to Mrs. 
Lennox's "Sister"; a dinner at Boswell's; appointed Pro- 
fessor of History to the Royal Academy, December; letter to 
Maurice Goldsmith, January; portrait painted by Reynolds; 
"The Deserted Village" published, May 26, 1770; depopu- 
lation theory ; identity of Auburn and Lissoy ; enduring quali- 
ties of the poem; farewell to poetry; amount received by 
author. 

" npHE Good Natur'd Man," we have seen, 
■*■ left Goldsmith the richer by ;^5oo. 
With this sum, it may be thought, he should 
have rested upon his oars, or, at all events, have 
raised some provisional barrier against the in- 
roads of necessity. As it was, not being by any 
means an exceptional member of society, he at 
once invested the greater part of it in purchas- 
ing the lease of fresh chambers. His old quar- 
ters, looked at by the light of his good fortune, 
had grown too narrow for his importance ; and 



A Memoir 169 

he consequently moved to a second floor at No. 
2, Brick. Court, Middle Temple, where he had 
a couple of '* reasonably-sized old-fashioned 
rooms, with a third smaller room or sleeping- 
closet." ^ Here he lived for the rest of his life. 
According to Cook, the sum he paid for the 
lease was ;^40o, and from the catalogue of the 
sale of his effects after his death, he must have 
laid out a good deal more in furnishing his new 
residence sumptuously. Wilton carpets, "blue 
morine festoon window-curtains compleat," 
Pembroke tables, " a very large dressing-glass," 
and his friend Sir Joshua's "Tragic Muse, in a 
gold frame," — to say nothing of complete tea 
and card equipages — can have left but little 
unexpended of the balance that remained. The 
step thus taken was clearly not a wise one ; and 
Goldsmith would have done better to respect 
the Nil te qucesiveris extra of Johnson. For he 
had not only to live in his new chambers ; but 
he had also to live up to them ; and here began, 
or was further perplexed, that tangled mesh of 
money difficulties from which he was hardly ever 
afterwards to shake himself free. 

In the meantime he seems to have " hung his 
crane " at Brick Court with all the honours. 
There are traditions of suppers and dinners and 
1 Forster's Life, 1877, ii, 105. 



170 Oliver Goldsmith 

card parties, at which, to use the formula of Dr. 
Primrose, whatever the quality of the wit, there 
was assuredly plenty of laughter. Blackstone, 
who occupied the rooms immediately below, is 
said to have been disturbed in the preparation of 
his " Commentaries " by the sounds of hilarity 
overhead ; and his successor, a Mr. Children, 
also testified to similar manifestations of the 
festive spirit of his neighbour above-stairs. 
The chief witness to these entertainments is an 
Irish gentleman named Seguin, who, about this 
date, made Goldsmith's acquaintance. The 
poet was godfather to Seguin's children, and his 
recollections, preserved by some of these, were 
long afterwards communicated to Prior by a 
member of the family, then living in Dublin. 
On one especially memorable occasion the 
Seguins dined with Goldsmith, in company with 
" Mr. and Mrs. Pollard, of Castle Pollard/' in 
order to meet Dr. Johnson. The guests had 
been duly warned by their host to talk only upon 
such subjects as they thoroughly understood, 
and on no account to interrupt the great man 
when he had once begun to discourse. With 
these precautions, added to the favouring circum- 
stance that *' Ursa Major" chanced to be in an 
unusually good temper, the evening passed off 
pleasantly. Another memory represents Gold- 



A Memoir 171 

smith as dancing a minuet with Mrs. Seguin, a 
performance which appears to have excited 
almost as much amusement as the historical 
hornpipe of his childhood. Now and then, it is 
related, he would sing Irish songs, and delight 
the company with his (and Peggy Golden's) old 
favourite, " The Cruelty of Barbara Allen." 
Here his success was never doubtful, for, with- 
out being an accomplished vocalist, he sang 
with much natural taste and feeling. At other 
times, blind man's buff, forfeits, tricks with 
cards, and children's games (when there were 
children present), were the order of the day. 
*' He unbent without reserve," says Prior, " to 
the level of whoever were his companions," ^ 
and the anecdotes of this time are wholly con- 
firmatory of his amiability, his love of fun, and 
his naturally cheerful disposition. His hospital- 
ity, as may be guessed, was in advance of his 
means. But it was noted that, however liberally 
he feasted his guests, his own habitual evening 
meal was boiled milk. 

In May, 1768, his elder brother ended an un- 
obtrusive life in his remote Irish home. Henry 
Goldsmith seems to have been the only member 
of the family to keep up a correspondence with 
his junior, whose kith and kin, by his account, 
1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 193. 



172 Oliver Goldsmith 

must have neglected him grievously. '* I be- 
lieve I have written an hundred letters to differ- 
ent friends in your country," he later tells his 
brother Maurice, ''and never received an an- 
swer to any of them." But for Henry he had 
attempted to obtain preferment from the Earl 
of Northumberland ; to Henry he had inscribed 
"The Traveller"; and to Henry he was to 
refer, with affectionate simplicity, in the " Dedi- 
cation" of his next poem. Indeed, it is prob- 
able that the death of Henry Goldsmith, by 
turning his thoughts once more to the friends 
and home of his boyhood, stimulated the pro- 
duction of "The Deserted Village," in which 
there are undoubted traces of both. And it is 
admitted that at this time he began to work 
upon the poem. William Cook, the young law 
student who wrote recollections of him in The 
European Magazine, expressly testifies to this, 
and gives some interesting particulars as to his 
methods of composition. "Goldsmith," he says, 
"though quick enough at prose, was rather 
slow in his poetry — not from the tardiness of 
fancy, but the time he took in pointing the 
sentiment, and polishing the versification.^ . . 

1 This is confirmed by others. His method, it is said, 
was to write his first thoughts in lines so far apart as to 
leave " ample room and verge enough" for copious inter- 



A Memoir 173 

His manner of writing poetry was this : he first 
sketched a part of his design in prose, in which 
he threw out his ideas as they occurred to him ; 
he then sat carefully down to versify them, 
correct them, and add such other ideas as he 
thought better fitted to the subject. He some- 
times would exceed his prose design, by writing 
several verses impromptu, but these he would 
take uncommon pains afterwards to revise, lest 
they should be found unconnected with his 
main design. The Writer of these Memoirs 
called upon the Doctor the second morning 
after he had begun 'The Deserted Village,' 
and to him he communicated the plan of his 
poem. . . . He then read what he had done of 
it that morning, beginning ' Dear lovely bowers 
of innocence and ease, ' " and so on for ten 
lines. *' ' Come/ says he, ' let me tell you, this 
is no bad morning's work ; and now, my dear boy, 
if you are not better engaged, I should be glad 
to enjoy a Shoe-maker's holiday with you.' " ^ 

Assuming that Cook is to be taken literally, 
the first morning's work at "The Deserted 
Village " must have consisted of exactly four 

lineation. According to Percy, he so industriously filled 
these spaces with corrections that scarce a line of the 
original draught remained. 

^ European Magazine^ September, 1793, p. 172. 



174 Oliver Goldsmith 

lines, since that of the second morning begins 
at line five of the poem as it stands at present. 
But the processes of poetry are not to be so 
exactly meted, and it is probable that Cook is 
more to be depended upon in his account of 
what Goldsmith calls a " shoemaker's holiday," 
the fashion of which was as follows : *' Three or 
four of his [Goldsmith's] intimate friends ren- 
dezvoused at his chambers to breakfast about 
ten o'clock in the morning ; at eleven they pro- 
ceeded by the City Road and through the fields 
to Highbury Barn to dinner ; about six o'clock 
in the evening they adjourned to White Conduit 
House to drink tea ; and concluded the evening 
by supping at the Grecian or Temple Exchange 
Coffee-houses, or at the Globe in Fleet-street. 
There was a very good ordinary of two dishes 
and pastry kept at Highbury Barn about this 
time (five-and-twenty years ago ^) at lod. per 
head, including a penny to the waiter, and the 
company generally consisted of literary char- 
acters, a few Templars, and some citizens who 
had left off trade. The whole expenses of this 
day's file never exceeded a crown, and oftener 
from three and sixpence to four shillings, for 
which the party obtained good air and exercise, 
good living, the example of simple manners, and 
^ Cook wrote in 1793. 



A Memoir 175 

good conversation." Prior adds a few particu- 
lars to this account, which, it may be observed, 
wholly neglects to include in its estimate of 
expenditure, the *' remarkably plentiful and 
rather expensive breakfast," with which the pro- 
ceedings began. *' When finished," he says, 
*' he [Goldsmith] had usually some poor women 
in attendance to whom the fragments were con- 
signed. On one occasion, a wealthy city 
acquaintance not remarkable for elegance of 
mind or manners, who observed this liberality, 
said with some degree of freedom, * Why, 
Doctor, you must be a rich man ; / cannot 
afford to do this.' ' It Is not wealth, my dear 
Sir,' was the reply of the Doctor, willing to re- 
buke without offending his guest,' but inclina- 
tion. I have only to suppose that a few more 
friends than usual have been of our party, and 
then it amounts to the same thing.' " ^ 

Cook, of course, frequently took part in these 
expeditions, and Prior enumerates some of the 
others who assisted. One was an original 
named Peter Barlow, a humble copyist in Gold- 
smith's employ. He always appeared in the 
same dress, and insisted on never paying more 
than fifteen pence for his dinner, the balance 
being made up by Goldsmith, who compensated 

1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 182-3. 



176 Oliver Goldsmith 

himself with the diversion that Barlow's eccen- 
tricities afforded to the rest of the company. 
Another not infrequent holiday-keeper was 
Glover, already mentioned in connection with 
the "Wednesday Club." *' Coley, and Wil- 
liams, and Howard, and Hiif " (Hiffernan), as 
the line of "The Haunch of Venison " has it, 
were doubtless often of the number, as well as 
others whose names have been forgotten — 
carent quia vate sacro. " Our Doctor," said 
Glover, at p. vi of the life prefixed to the 
*' Poems and Plays " of 1777, " had a constant 
levee of his distrest countrymen, whose wants, 
as far as he was able, he alwa^^s relieved ; and 
he has been often known to leave himself with- 
out a guinea, in order to supply the necessities 
of others." Sometimes it may be added, he even 
went further than this, and borrowed from some 
one else the guinea required. In Taylor's 
" Records of my Life" there is a story told of 
Cook to this effect. Cook had engaged to meet 
a party at Marylebone Gardens, and applied to 
Goldsmith for a loan. Goldsmith had not the 
wherewithal ; but at once undertook to obtain 
it. Having waited for some time, Cook finally 
went away without the money. Returning at 
five in the morning, he found it difficult to open 
his door; and, upon investigation, discovered 



A Memoir 177 

that the obstruction arose from a guinea wrapped 
in paper, which Goldsmith, disregarding the 
established medium of the letter-box, had en- 
deavoured to thrust under it. Cook thanked 
him in the course of the day; but commented 
upon this unbusinesslike mode of transferring 
funds, adding, very justly, that any one might 
have found and appropriated the little packet. 
" In truth, my dear fellow," replied Goldsmith, 
'' I did not think of that." '^The fact is," adds 
the charitable narrator of the anecdote, ' ' he prob- 
ably thought of nothing but serving a friend." ^ 

From the "shoemaker's holiday" it is a 
natural transition to the "Shoemaker's Para- 
dise." This was a summer retreat at Edgeware 
at the back of Canons (Pope's " Timon's 
Villa "), to which Goldsmith moved about the 
middle of 1768. It consisted of a tiny cottage 
which had been actually built for a Piccadilly 
shoemaker ; and (by Cook's account) was 
decorated in all the taste of the " Cit's Country 
Box" sung by Robert Lloyd, or that other and 
earlier civic Elysium described in No. xxxiii. of 
The Connoisseur — in other words, it included, 
in the "scanty plot" of half an acre, all those 
jets d'eau, flying Mercuries, gazeboes, and 
ditches — 

1 Records of my Life, 1832, i, 107-8. 
II 



1 78 Oliver Goldsmith 

" four foot wide, 
With angles, curves, and zig-zag lines. 
From Halfpenny's exact designs," ^ 

in which the common-council mind of the last 
century delighted when it surrendered itself to 
flights of fancy. Goldsmith's co-lessee of this 
desirable residence, was a Mr. Edmund Bott, 
a barrister, and author of a work on the Poor 
Laws, which Goldsmith is reported to have 
revised. Mr. Bott occupied rooms in Brick 
Court on the same floor as Goldsmith, and a 
strong friendship sprang up between them. 
Bott was the richer man, and Goldsmith was 
frequently indebted to him for loans of money ; 
indeed, at Goldsmith's death, Bott was his chief 
creditor, and thus became possessor of his 
papers. In spite, however, of these dubious 
relations, they were boon companions. Edge- 
ware, even in 1768, was not so far off as to 
exile them from the pleasures of the metropolis, 
especially in days when the orthodox dinner 
hour was four o'clock. Moreover, Mr. Bott 
kept a gig, which he drove himself — a perform- 
ance not without its excitements when the 
charioteer was slightly in his cups. There is 
(or was) a letter extant in which Goldsmith 
recalls how, upon one memorable occasion, his 

1 Lloyd's Poetical Works, 1774, i, 45. 



A Memoir 179 

companion, having bumped a post with great 
dexterity, still continued to maintain doggedly 
that the vehicle was in the middle of the 
road. 

It v\^as not, hov^^ever, entirely for pleasure, 
quickened by the ** violent delight " of an occa- 
sional overturn, that Goldsmith sought the 
seclusion of the little cottage at the back of 
Lord Chandos's Edgeware mansion. During all 
the summer of 1768 he v\^as, doubtless, busily 
employed upon the " History of Rome" he had 
undertaken for Davies, which was published in 
May of the following year. Its success was 
instantaneous. The charm and simplicity of 
the style at once caught the public, and though 
the writer disclaimed research, and professed 
only to have aimed at a school book, he obtained 
all the favour attaching to work that conveys 
instruction without making unreasonable de- 
mands on the reader's attention. Its popularity 
and Goldsmith's need seem speedily to have led 
to new enterprises of a like nature. Already, 
in February, 1769, he had entered into a cove- 
nant with Griffin, the publisher of the " Essays" 
of 1765, to write, in eight volumes, at one 
hundred guineas a volume, a " New Natural 
History of Animals," which afterwards became 
the well-known '' Animated Nature " ; and the 



i8o Oliver Goldsmith 

*' Roman History" was no sooner issued, than 
Davies made proposals for a new *' English 
History " in four volumes octavo, at £^oo. 
Among Goldsmith's friends there was no doubt 
as to his ability to make these productions 
readable, even if they were not equally sure of 
his equipment as a naturalist or an historian. 
*' Sir," said the ever-steadfast Johnson, *'he 
has the art of compiling," and he predicted that 
his friend would make his natural history as 
interesting as a Persian tale. Nowadays we 
may possibly require a different standard of 
entertainment ; but Johnson's meaning is un- 
mistakable. Nevertheless, it is to be regretted 
that necessity should have left open no other 
career than '' book-building" to the author of 
an unique novel, an excellent comedy, and a 
successful didactic poem. 

Goldsmith's only contribution to the lighter 
muses for the year 1769 consists of an epilogue 
to the comedy of " The Sister," by Mrs. Char- 
lotte Lenox (nde Ramsay), an authoress who 
seems to have been a considerable favourite 
with the literati of her day. Fielding speaks of 
her in his last book^ as " the inimitable author 

1 "Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon'^ 1755. PP- 35~6. 
For some further account of Mrs. Lenox, see '* Eighteenth 
Century Vignettes^'' First Series, pp. 55-67. 



A Memoir i8i 

of the * Female Quixote,' " and Johnson was 
half suspected of having revised her ''Shakes- 
peare Illustrated.'" It was probably owing to 
this popularity that Goldsmith wrote her the 
epilogue in question, as her comedy belonged 
to that genteel, if not absolutely sentimental 
class of play, of which he was the avowed 
opponent. It is a pleasant example of his facil- 
ity and good nature. The only other incident 
of this year requiring record is a famous din- 
ner at Boswell's, which has always played an 
important part in all literary portraits of Gold- 
smith. The impression produced by the ex- 
traordinary art of Johnson's biographer is so 
vivid, that, although one feels the malice of 
some of the touches, any attempt to soften 
them detracts from the value of the picture. 
It must therefore be given in Boswell's own 
words : — 

*' He [Johnson] honoured me with his com- 
pany at dinner on the i6th October [1769], at 
my lodgings in Old Bond-street, with Sir Joshua 
Reynolds, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. 
Murphy, Mr. BickerstafT, and Mr. Thomas 
Davies. Garrick played round him with a fond 
vivacity, taking hold of the breasts of his coat, 
and looking up in his face with a lively arch- 
ness, complimented him on the good health 



1 82 Oliver Goldsmith 

which he seemed then to enjoy ; while the sage, 
shaking his head, beheld him with a gentle 
complacency. One of the company not being 
come at the appointed hour, I proposed, as 
usual upon such occasions, to order dinner to 
be served ; adding, ' Ought six people to be 
kept waiting for one ? ' ' Why, yes (answered 
Johnson, with a delicate humanity), if the one 
will suffer more by your sitting down, than the 
six will do by waiting.' Goldsmith, to divert 
the tedious minutes, strutted about, bragging of 
his dress, and I believe was seriously vain of 
it, for his mind was wonderfully prone to such 
impressions. ' Come, come, (said Garrick,) 
talk no more of that. You are, perhaps, the 
worst — eh, eh I ' Goldsmith was eagerly at- 
tempting to interrupt him, when Garrick went 
on, laughing ironically, ' Nay, you will always 
look like a gentleman ; but I am talking of being 
well or ill drest/ ' Well, let me tell you, (said 
Goldsmith,) when my tailor brought home my 
bloom-coloured coat, he said, " Sir^ I have a 
favour to beg of you. When anybody asks you 
who made your clothes, be pleased to mention 
John Filby, at the Harrow, in Water Lane.' 
Johnson. ' Why, Sir, that was because he knew 
the strange colour would attract crowds to gaze 
at it, and thus they might hear of him, and see 



A Memoir 183 

how well he could make a coat even of so 
absurd a colour.' " ^ 

The conversation which followed occupies 
some pages of Boswell's record. But Gold- 
smith's part in it, or, at all events, that part 
which Boswell thought worthy of preservation, 
seems to have been confined to a curt comment 
on Lord Kames's " Elements of Criticism," 
and the not very original remark that Pope's 
" Atticus " showed a deep knowledge of the 
human heart. Johnson, on the other hand, 
distinguished himself more than usual, espe- 
cially by his well-known and paradoxical pref- 
erence of a passage in Congreve's " Mourning 
Bride " to anything he could recollect in Shakes- 
peare. Not long after this memorable enter- 
tainment, simultaneous honours fell upon the 
two friends. The, Public Advertiser announced 
that Johnson had been appointed Professor of 
Ancient Literature, and Goldsmith Professor 
of Ancient History, to the Royal Academy. 

1 Hill's Boswell's Johnson, 1887, ii, 83. Boswell's 
memory errs here. The tailor's Christian name was 
William. Dr. Birkbeck Hill is somewhat exercised to 
find that Filby's accounts for this date only chronicle 
" bloom-coloured breeches." But Goldsmith was plainly 
referring to the historical suit of " Tyrian bloom satin 
grain," which had been sent home just before the pro- 
duction of " The^Good Natur'd Man." See ante., p. 164. 



1 84 Oliver Goldsmith 

This was in December ; but the formal election 
only took place on the succeeding 9th of 
January. Reynolds, who had been made presi- 
dent some time before, was the motive power 
in these distinctions, which, unhappily, were 
purely honorary. *' The King," wrote Gold- 
smith in January to his brother Maurice, " has 
lately been pleased to make me professor of 
Ancient History in a Royal Academy of Paint- 
ing, which he has just established, but there is 
no salary annexed ; and I took it rather as a 
compliment to the institution than any benefit 
to myself. Honours to one in my situation are 
something like ruffles to one that wants a shirt." ^ 
This last illustration he subsequently, after his 
fashion, worked into the " Haunch of Venison." 
In the same letter he speaks of sending to Ire- 
land mezzotinto prints of himself, Burke, John- 
son, and other of his friends. His own portrait 
to which he refers, was the well-known one by 
Reynolds, now at Knole, which was exhibited 
at the Royal Academy in 1770 with those of 
Johnson and Colman. The engraving of it by 
Marchi was not, however, issued until the fol- 
lowing December, by which time Goldsmith 
was in possession of fresh laurels as the author 
of "The Deserted Village." 

1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 221. 



A Memoir 185 

The poem of " The Deserted Village'* had 
been but slowly produced. When it was at last 
published, on the 26th of May, 1770, nearly 
two years had elapsed since Cook first found 
the author at work upon the opening couplets. 
But its reception amply atoned for any labour 
of the file to which it had been subjected. Be- 
fore a month had passed, second, third, and 
fourth editions were called for, and in August 
came a fifth. The poem was dedicated to Rey- 
nolds, with a touching reference to Henry 
Goldsmith. '* The only dedication I ever made 
was to my brother, because I loved him better 
than most other men. He is since dead. Per- 
mit me to inscribe this Poem to you."^ In 
some passages that follow, Goldsmith anticipates 
the objections to which he evidently felt his 
theory of depopulation was liable. '' I sincerely 
believe what I have written," he said ; "I have 
taken all possible pains, in my country excur- 
sions, for these four or five years past, to be 
certain of what I allege ; " and •' all my views 
and enquiries have led me to believe those 
miseries real, which I here attempt to display." 

1 Reynolds repaid this compliment in 1772, by inscrib- 
ing to Goldsmith the print of " Resignation " as follows : 
•' This attempt to express a character in * The Deserted 
Village,' is dedicated to Doctor Goldsmith, by his sincere 
friend and admirer, Joshua Reynolds." 



1 86 Oliver Goldsmith 

To Cook (unless Cook was only paraphrasing 
this dedication) he spoke in similar terms, 
''Some of my friends," he told him, "differ 
with me on this plan, and think this depopula- 
tion of villages does not exist — but I am my- 
self satisfied of the fact. I remember it in my 
own country, and have seen it in this."^ In 
such anxiety to show cause, there is an accent 
of doubt. He had, it is true, seen something 
of the kind in his own country, when a certain 
General Naper or Napier, returning enriched 
from Vigo, in extending his estate, displaced a 
number of cottiers in the neighbourhood of 
Lissoy. But none of his biographers have 
brought forward any of that evidence which he 
affirmed he had collected, of similar enormities 
in England. 

There is another aspect of the poem which 
has proved a fertile source of speculation. 
What was the locality of Goldsmith's ' ' Auburn," 
and how far, since other claimants may be 
neglected, is it to be identified with Lissoy ? 
It has been sought to prove that Lissoy was the 
original Auburn, and that the likeness cor- 
responds in the most minute particulars. This 
is manifestly a mistake, which very little ac- 
quaintance with poetic methods should have 
1 European Magazine^ September, 1793, P- ^T^' 



A Memoir 187 

sufficed to prevent. There is no evidence (al- 
though there is a vague tradition) that Gold- 
smith ever visited Ireland after he left it in 1752, 
more than fifteen years before he began to write 
*' The Deserted Village." The poem was con- 
ceived in England ; and from his desire to prove 
depopulation in England, was evidently in- 
tended to have its scene in England. But its 
leading idea was no doubt suggested by the old 
Napier story familiar to his boyhood, and sen- 
sibly or insensibly, for many of the accessories 
he drew upon his memories of his Irish home. 
There is no reason for supposing that, in " the 
decent church that topp'd the neighbouring 
hill," we may not recognise that of Kilkenny 
West as seen from Lissoy Parsonage, or that 
the hawthorn tree was not that immemorial one 
in front of the village alehouse, which finally 
fell before the penknives of the curious. In the 
same way, the details of the alehouse itself were 
probably those of some kindred hostelry he had 
known well at Ballymahon or elsewhere. And 
it is certain that with the traits of the village 
preacher are mingled those of his father, his 
brother, and perhaps his Uncle Contarine, 
while, for the pedagogue, he obviously bor- 
rowed some of the characteristics of his old 
master, Thomas Byrne. 



1 88 Oliver Goldsmith 

Happily, however, the popularity of "The 
Deserted Village" depends neither upon the 
fidelity of its resemblance to a little hamlet in 
Westmeath, nor upon the accuracy of its theo- 
ries as to luxury and depopulation. In this age, 
when it is not necessary, as in Goldsmith's days 
it was, to make declaration of some moral pur- 
pose, however doubtful, we are free to disregard 
its ethical and political teaching in favour of its 
sweet and tender cadences, and its firm hold 
upon the ever-fresh commonplaces of human 
nature. Johnson thought it inferior to "The 
Traveller," probably because it was less didac- 
tic ; we, on the contrary, prefer it, because, 
with less obtrusion of moral, it presents in 
larger measure those qualities of chastened 
sympathy and descriptive grace which are Gold- 
smith at his best. It is idle to quote passages 
from a work so familiar. The beautiful lines, 
beginning, " In all my wanderings round this 
world of care," and the portrait of the clergy- 
man and schoolmaster, are too well known to 
need recalling. But we may fitly reproduce the 
final farewell to Poetry, which, judging from 
the numerous appeals and deprecatory com- 
ments it elicited, must have excited far more 
apprehension among the writer's contempora- 
ries than such valedictory addresses usually 



A Memoir 189 

deserve. The adieus of poets, it is to be feared, 
are like the last appearances of actors. 

"And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid, 
Still first to fly where sensual joys invade ; 
Unfit in these degenerate times of shame. 
To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame ; 
Dear charming nymph, neglected and decried, 
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride ; 
Thou source of all my bliss, and all my woe, 
That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so ; 
Thou guide by which the nobler arts excel, 
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well ! 
Farewell, and Oh ! where'er thy voice be tried. 
On Torno's cliffs, or Pambamarca's side. 
Whether where equinoctial fervours glow. 
Or winter wraps the polar world in snow, 
Still let thy voice, prevailing over time, 
Redress the rigours of th' inclement clime ; 
Aid slighted truth ; with thy persuasive strain 
Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain ; 
Teach him, that states of native strength possessed. 
Though very poor, may still be very bless'd ; 
That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay. 
As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away ; 
While self-dependent power can time defy, 
As rocks resist the billows and the sky." ^ 

What Goldsmith was paid for " The De- 
serted Village " is uncertain. Glover says it 
was a hundred guineas, and adds that Gold- 

1 The last four lines are Johnson's. 



190 Oliver Goldsmith 

smith gave the money back to his publisher, 
because some one thought it was too much.-^ 
Whether such a story is wholly credible, may 
be left to the judicious reader to decide. 

1 Life prefixed to Poems and Plays, 1777, vi-vii. 



CHAPTER X 

The Horneck family; "Life of Thomas Parnell " published, 
July 13, 1770 ; visit to Paris, and letters to Reynolds; "Abridg- 
ment of Roman History," September ; " Life of Boling- 
broke" published, December; Lord Clare and " The Haunch 
of Venison"; at the Royal Academy dinner; at Edgeware; 
" History of England" published, August 6, 1771; letter to 
Langton, September 17; prologue to Cradock's " Zobeide," 
December 11; " Threnodia Augustalis" published, February 
20, 1772; letter in prose and verse to Mrs. Bunbury; story of 
" She Stoops to Conquer " ; production of that play at Covent 
Garden, March 15, 1773 ; its success. 

A MONG the friends whom Goldsmith had 
■^^ made at Reynolds's house was a pleasant 
family from Devonshire, consisting of a mother, 
a son, and two daughters. The mother, Mrs. 
Hannah Horneck, the widow of a certain Cap- 
tain Kane Horneck, of the Royal Engineers, 
had been known in her youth as the " Plymouth 
Beauty," and her daughters, Catherine and 
Mary, at this date girls of nineteen and seven- 
teen respectively, inherited and even excelled 
her charms. Charles Horneck, the son, who 
had recently entered the Foot Guards, was a 
** pretty fellow" of sufficient eminence to be 



192 Oliver Goldsmith 

caricatured as a Macaroni ; but he was also an 
amiable and a genial companion. With these 
new acquaintances Goldsmith appears to have 
become very intimate, visiting them frequently 
at their house at Westminster, or meeting them 
at Sir Joshua's. There is a rhymed letter 
among his poems declining an invitation to join 
them at the house of Reynolds's physician. Dr. 
Baker, in which he refers to the young ladies 
by the pet names of " Little Comedy " and the 
"Jessamy Bride," while he speaks of their 
brother as the ^' Captain in Lace/' titles 
modelled, no doubt, on the popular shop-win- 
dow prints of Matthew Darly and the rest, and, 
whether conferred by Goldsmith or not, plainly, 
by their use, implying a considerable amount of 
familiarity. Indeed, the personal attractions of 
the Miss Hornecks seem to have exercised no 
small fascination over the susceptible poet, a 
fascination to which, in the case of the younger 
— for Catherine was already engaged to Bun- 
bury the caricaturist — some of his biographers 
have thought it justifiable to attach a gentler 
name. After Catherine's marriage in August, 
1 77 1, Goldsmith was a frequent visitor at Bun- 
bury's house at Great Barton in Suffolk, where, 
to this day, some relics of him, including the 
rhymed letter above referred to, are piously pre- 



A Memoir 193 

served. Whether he, a mature man of forty- 
two, did really cherish a more than cordial 
friendship for the beautiful " Jessamy Bride," 
into whose company he was so often thrown, 
must be left to speculation ; but that a genuine 
regard existed on both sides can scarcely be 
contested, and many of the most interesting 
anecdotes of Goldsmith's latter days are derived 
from the recollections communicated to Prior by 
the lady, who, as Mrs. Gwyn, survived until 
1840. 

In July, 1770, shortly after the publication of 
a brief and not very elaborate " Life of Thomas 
Parnell," which he had prepared for Davies, to 
accompany a new edition of ParnelFs works, 
Goldsmith set off to Paris on a holiday jaunt 
with Mrs. Horneck and her daughters. " The 
Professor of History," writes that fair Academi- 
cian, Miss Mary Moser, to Fuseli at Rome, 
" is comforted by the success of his ' Deserted 
Village,' which is a very pretty poem, and has 
lately put himself under the conduct of Mrs. 
Horneck and her fair daughters, and is gone to 
France ; and Dr. Johnson sips his tea, and 
cares not for the vanity of the world." ^ From 
Calais Goldsmith sent a letter to Reynolds, in 
which he gossips brightly about the passage, not, 

1 Prior's Life, 1S37, ii, 288. 



194 Oliver Goldsmith 

it appears, an entire success, owing to the 
imperfect state of Iiis '' machine to prevent sea- 
sickness." Then, after describing the extor- 
tionate civilities of the French porters, he v^inds 
up with what is presumably a playful memory 
of those trivialities of travellers which he had 
satirised as Lien Chi Altangi : *M cannot help 
mentioning another circumstance ; I bought a 
new ribbon for my wig at Canterbury, and the 
barber at Calais broke it in order to gain six- 
pence by buying me a new one."^ At Lille, 
where the party stopped en route, occurred an 
incident, which, since it has been told to Gold- 
smith's disadvantage, shall be given here from 
the narrative of the " Jessamy Bride," as sum- 
marised by Prior. " Having visited part of 
Flanders, they were proceeding to Paris by the 
way of Lisle, when in the vicinity of the hotel 
at which they put up, a part of the garrison 
going through some military manoeuvres, drew 
them to the windows, when the gallantry of the 
officers broke forth into a variety of compliments 
intended for the ears of the English ladies. 
Goldsmith seemed amused ; but at length assum- 
ing something of severity of countenance, which 
was a pecularity of his humour often displayed 
when most disposed to be jocular, turned off, 

1 Miscellaneous Works, i8oi, i, 90, 91. 



A Memoir 195 

uttering something to the effect of what is com- 
monly stated, that elsewhere he would also have 
his admirers. ' This,' added my informant, 
* was said in mere playfulness, and I was shocked 
many years afterwards to see it adduced in print 
as a proof of his envious disposition.' "^ 

The above disposes of the versions of North- 
cote and Boswell attributing genuine jealousy 
to Goldsmith upon this occasion, an accusation 
which, as Prior says, is an absurdity, and the 
reference to his assumed '^ severity of coun- 
tenance " goes far to explain some other stories 
of the kind. But Prior's very next sentence 
unconsciously confirms the charges made against 
him of undue preoccupation with his own im- 
portance. *' Of Paris, the same lady states 
he soon became tired, the celebrity of his name 
and the recent success of his poem, not ensur- 
ing that attention from its literary circles which 
the applause received at home induced him to 
expect."^ Hence, or for some other reasons, 
among which may be reckoned his ill-health 
and pecuniary difficulties, there is little rose- 
colour in his next letter to Reynolds. His 
companions are not interested, and he himself 
is weary. The petty troubles of travel are 

1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 291. 

2 Ibid. 



196 Oliver Goldsmith 

harder to bear than they were when, a younger 
and a stronger man, he led the 

" sportive choir, 
"With tuneless pipe, beside the murmuring Loire ; " 

the diet disagrees with his dyspepsia, and he 
is hungering for tidings of Johnson, and Burke, 
and Colman, and the rest of the Gerrard Street 
company. He has besides, he says, *' so out- 
run the constable that he must mortify a little 
to bring it up again ; " and he has bought a 
silk coat which makes him look like a fool. ^ 
So the letter ambles on to the close. He can- 
not say more because he intends showing it to 
the ladies, and he concludes with a phrase be- 
ginning with a pair of words almost as common 
on his lips as his favourite " In truth " — " What 
signifies teasing you longer with moral obser- 
vations when the business of my writing is 
over?"^ He has only one thing more to say, 
and of that he thinks every hour, that he is his 
correspondent's " most sincere and most affec- 
tionate friend.'' It has been hinted that to his 
other continental discomforts was added an 
uncongenial companion, Mr. Hickey of *' Re- 
taliation," who joined the party, and being 

1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 294. 

2 /^/^^ ji^ 295. 



A Memoir 197 

familiar with Paris, absorbed too much atten- 
tion. Hickey was, as Goldsmith called him 
afterwards, "a most blunt, pleasant creature," 
but at this time the former qualification seems 
to have been in the ascendant. The two men, 
in short, did not agree, and to this circum- 
stance, perhaps, are to be traced one or tvv^o of 
the less creditable anecdotes of the poet dating 
from this time. While at Versailles, it is said, 
Goldsmith, remembering his old prowess as a 
boy, attemped to leap from the bank on to one 
of the little islets, and fell lamentably short. 
Doubtless this (as Prior says), " was to the 
great amusement of the company " ^ (and proba- 
bly to the detriment of the silk coat) ; but it is 
manifestly an episode that may be told in many 
ways, according to the taste and fancy of the 
teller. In Mr. Mickey's unsympathetic narra- 
tive, for instance, it would probably acquire all 
the advantages of picturesque treatment. 

In his letter to Reynolds, touching that little 
sentence about ''outrunning the constable," 
Goldsmith had spoken of laying by at Dover, 
or rather of taking a country lodging in the 
vicinity, " in order to do some business." 
When his six weeks' excursion was over, how- 
ever, he does not appear to have acted upon his 

1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 296-7. 



198 Oliver Goldsmith 

intention, perhaps because of the death of his 
mother, of which he had received intelligence 
while abroad. There is a silly story, repeated 
by Northcote, that he only put on half-mourning 
for this bereavement. But it has been refuted 
by both Prior and Forster, with the aid of Mr. 
Filby's bills, which duly record the purchase 
of a suit of mourning sent home on the 8th of 
September, and the terms are identical with 
those which chronicle similar purchases made 
upon the deaths of his brother Henry and 
the Princess Dowager of Wales. Probably the 
expense thus incurred served to increase the 
activity with which he returned to the old task, 
work. Only a few days after Mr. Filby sent 
home the new clothes, Goldsmith had agreed 
with Davies to abridge the " Roman History " 
of the previous year for fifty guineas, and, even 
before entering upon this labour, he was en- 
gaged upon another task for the same book-sel- 
ler, a life of Bolingbroke, intended to introduce 
a reprint of that writer's " Dissertation upon 
Parties." The book must have been hastily 
prepared, for it was published in December, 
without any author's name ; and, from one of 
Davies' letters to Granger of the '* Biographical 
History," apparently took as much time to 
print as to write. " Doctor Goldsmith/' he 



A Memoir 199 

complains, " is gone with Lord Clare into the 
country, and I am plagued to get the proofs 
from him of his * Life of Lord Bolingbroke.' '* 
The evidences of hurry were more manifest in 
this work than usual, and his old enemies of 
The Monthly Review did not fail to make merry 
over its errors of the pen, and its sporadic John- 
sonese. But his facts are said to have been 
fully abreast of contemporary knowledge ; and 
he had, at least, one quality of success — 
that of genuine admiration for the parts and 
politics of the brilliant genius who formed his 
subject. 

As already stated, the book was issued in 
December, and from Davies' words it is clear 
that Goldsmith had already gone to visit Lord 
Clare before this date. He stayed with him 
some time, and during the opening months of 
1 77 1 was still in his company. ''Goldsmith is 
at Bath, with Lord Clare," writes Johnson to 
Langton, in March. At Bath occurred that char- 
acteristic second visit to the Duke of Northum- 
berland,^ which, since it is related by Percy 
on the authority of the Duchess herself, can 
scarcely be rejected by the courteous biog- 
rapher, even if it were not, as it is, an inci- 

1 See Chapter vii. The Earl of Northumberland had 
been created a Duke in 1766. 



200 Oliver Goldsmith 

dent thoroughly in keeping with what we know 
of Goldsmith from other sources. *' On one 
of the parades at Bath," says Percy, '* the 
Duke and Lord Nugent had hired two adjacent 
houses. Dr. Goldsmith, who was then resident 
on a visit to the latter, one morning walked up 
into the Duke's dining-room, as he and the 
Duchess were preparing to sit down to breakfast. 
In a manner the most free and easy he threw 
himself on a sofa ; and as he was then perfectly 
known to them both, they inquired of him the 
Bath news of the day ; and, imagining there was 
some mistake, endeavoured by easy and cheer- 
ful conversation to prevent his being too much 
embarrassed, till breakfast being served up, they 
invited him to stay and partake of it. Then he 
awoke from his reverie, declared he thought he 
had been in the house of his friend Lord 
Nugent, and with a confusion which may be 
imagined, hastily withdrew ; but not till they had 
kindly made him promise to dine with them." ^ 

That Goldsmith referred to his friend as Lord 
Nugent is scarcely possible, for Lord Clare did 
not obtain this title until after Goldsmith had 
been dead two years. This, however, is a 
trifle which detracts little from the veracity of 
the story. How much longer he continued to 

1 Miscellaneous Works, 1801, i, 68-9. 



A Memoir 201 

be Lord Clare's guest is unrecorded ; but shortly 
after his return to London he is supposed to 
have addressed to him, in return for a present of 
venison, the delightful " poetical epistle " which 
is to be found in his works. That it was 
written subsequent to the middle of 1770 may 
be inferred from its quotation of a famous lapse ^ 
in one of the love-letters of his illiterate Royal 
Highness, Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumber- 
land, to the Countess Grosvenor — a corre- 
spondence which, in the summer of the above 
year, afforded huge delight to the scandal-mon- 
gers — and it is most probable that the poem 
was written in the spring of 1771. But what- 
ever its exact date, Mr. Forster is right (not- 
withstanding a slight obscurity in the closing 
lines) in claiming the highest praise for this 
piece of ^' private pleasantry." So happy is it, 
that were it not for its obvious recollections of 
Boileau's third satire, one might be disposed to 
regard it as autobiographical. To select a 
passage from a piece so uniformly wrought is 
difficult, but the excellence of the description of 
the dinner, as a sample of what his most super- 

^ " Left alone to reflect, having emptied my shelf, 
* And nobody with me at sea but myself.' " 

The second line is almost a textual reproduction of a 
phrase in one of the Duke's letters. 



202 Oliver Goldsmith 



11 



fine contemporaries called the poet's '* low 
humour, must serve as an excuse for quoting it 
at length. The reader will only need to re- 
member that while Goldsmith, having distributed 
part of his just-received present, is debating what 
to do with the rest, it is unblushingly carried 
off by a chance visitor, who invites its owner 
to join in eating it in the form of a pasty : — 

" When come to the place where we all were to dine, 
(A chair-lumber'd closet just twelve feet by nine :) 
My friend bade me welcome, but struck me quite dumb, 
"With tidings that Johnson and Burke would not come ; 
* For I knew it,' he cried, ' both eternally fail. 
The one with his speeches, and t' other with Thrale ; 
But no matter, I '11 warrant we '11 make up the party 
With two full as clever, and ten times as hearty. 
The one is a Scotchman, the other a Jew, 
They ['re] both of them merry and authors like you ; 
The one writes the Snarler, the other the Scourge ; 
Some think he writes Cinna — he owns to Panurge* 
While thus he describ'd them by trade and by name, 
They enter'd, and dinner was serv'd as they came. 

" At the top a fried liver and bacon were seen, 
At the bottom was tripe in a swinging tureen ; 
At the sides there was spinage and pudding made hot ; 
In the middle a place where the pasty — was not. 
Now, my Lord, as for tripe, it 's my utter aversion, 
And your bacon I hate like a Turk or a Persian ; 
So there I sat stuck, like a horse in a pound. 
While the bacon and liver went merrily round. 



A Memoir 203 

But what vex'd me most was that d 'd Scottish rogue, 

With his long-winded speeches, his smiles, and his 

brogue ; 
And, * Madam,' quoth he, * may this bit be my poison, 
A prettier dinner I never set eyes on ; 
Pray a slice of your liver, though may I be curs'd, 
But I Ve eat of your tripe till I 'm ready to burst/ 

* The tripe,* quoth the Jew, with his chocolate cheek, 

* I could dine on this tripe seven days in the week : 
I like these here dinners so pretty and small ; 

But your friend there, the Doctor, eats nothing at all.' 

* O ~ Oh ! ' quoth my friend, * he '11 come on in a trice. 
He 's keeping a corner for something that 's nice : 
There 's a pasty ' — 'A pasty ! ' repeated the Jew, 

* I don't care if I keep a corner for 't too.' 

* What the de'il, mon, a pasty ! ' re-echoed the Scot, 
' Though splitting, I '11 still keep a corner for thot.* 

* We '11 all keep a corner,' the lady cried out ; 

* We '11 all keep a corner,' was echoed about. 
While thus we resolv'd, and the pasty delay'd, 
With looks that quite petrified, entered the maid ; 
A visage so sad, and so pale with affright, 
Wak'd Priam in drawing his curtains by night. 

But we quickly found out, for who could mistake her 1 
That she came with some terrible news from the baker : 
And so it fell out, for that negligent sloven 
Had shut out the pasty on shutting his oven." 

As a piece of graphic, easy humour Gold- 
smith has not often bettered this. The refer- 
ences to Johnson and Burke, the side-strokes 
(perfectly perceptible to Lord Clare) at Parson 



204 Oliver Goldsmith 

Scott in " Cinna" and *' Panurge," the vulgar 
effusiveness of the hungry North Briton, and 
the neat fidelity of the Jew's " I like these here 
dinners so pretty and small " — are all perfect in 
their way. Nor should the skill with which 
Goldsmith manages to suggest that he is 
"among" but not " of" the company, be over- 
looked. Indeed, it would, in some respects, be 
more difficult to match a passage of this kind 
than anything in "The Traveller" or "The 
Deserted Village."^ 

On the 24th of August, 1770 (when Gold- 
smith was at Paris with the Hornecks), Thomas 
Chatterton had committed suicide in his Hol- 
born garret, and one of the topics of conversa- 
tion at the first dinner of the Royal Academy on 
the 23rd of April, 1771 (St. George's Day), was 
his genius and his untimely fate. From a 
memorandum afterwards drawn up by Horace 
Walpole, it seems that Goldsmith was one of 
the believers in the Rowley poems. " I thought 
no more," says Walpole, referring to his inter- 

1 At this point Mr. Forster interposes an account of an 
undated translation by Goldsmith of Marco Vida's 
" Game of Chess," first published by Cunningham in 1854 
from the original MS. in the possession of Mr. Bolton 
Corney. It is written in heroic measure ; but makes no 
particular addition to Goldsmith's poetical reputation. 



A Memoir 205 

course with the Bristol genius, ** of him or 
them [his poems], till about a year and a half 
after, when dining at the Royal Academy, Dr. 
Goldsmith drew the attention of the company 
with the account of a marvellous treasure of 
ancient poems lately discovered at Bristol, and 
expressed enthusiastic belief in them, for which 
he was laughed at by Dr. Johnson, who was 
present. I soon found this to be the trouvaille 
of my friend Chatterton,and I told Dr. Gold- 
smith that this novelty was none to me, who 
might, if I had pleased, have had the honour of 
ushering the great discovery to the learned 
world. You may imagine, sir, we did not at all 
agree in the measure of our faith ; but though 
his credulity diverted me, my mirth was soon 
dashed, for on asking about Chatterton, he told 
me he had been in London, and had destroyed 
himself." ^ Goldsmith, upon another occasion, 
took up the cudgels for the poems against Percy 
so hotly, that Percy, who had much of the 
Northumberland temper, retorted with equal 
warmth, and a breach ensued, which was not at 
once repaired. The only other anecdote with 
respect to this matter relates that Goldsmith was 
at one time anxious to become the purchaser of 

1 A Letter to the Editor of the Miscellanies of Thomas 
Chattert&n [by Horace Walpole], 1779, pp. 37-8, 



2o6 Oliver Goldsmith 

the Rowley MSS. But as the only considera- 
tion proposed was a promissory note, Mr. 
George Catcott, their possessor, replied drily 
that a poet's note of hand would scarcely pass 
current on the Bristol Exchange. 

Shortly after his return from Lord Clare's, 
Goldsmith, under pressure of literary labour, 
again resorted to the solitude of the country. 
He took a room in a farmhouse near the six- 
mile stone on the Edgeware Road, carrying 
down his books in two returned post-chaises. 
This room, says Prior, he continued to use as 
a summer residence until his death, and here 
great part of his " Animated Nature," his 
*' History of Greece " and other later compila- 
tions was written. It was an airy chamber up 
one pair of stairs, looking cheerfully over a 
wooded landscape towards Hendon, and when 
visited by Boswell and Mickle of the "Lusiads " 
in the following year, was found to be scrawled 
all over with *' curious scraps of descriptions of 
animals." ^ Such memories of Goldsmith at this 
date as survive, represent him wandering in the 
fields, or musing under hedges, or now and 
then taking his station abstractedly in front of 
Farmer Selby's kitchen fire. Often he would 
depart suddenly for Brick Court, where he 

1 Hill's Boswell's yohnson, 1887, ii, 182. 



A Memoir 207 

would remain for a week or more. On other 
occasions a dance would be improvised, or he 
would treat the younger members of the family 
to the diversion of the strolling players. At in- 
tervals he was visited by some of his London 
friends. Reynolds, Chambers, and even John- 
son are believed to have been thus entertained, 
upon which occasions of state he migrated to 
his landlord's parlour. By the farmer's family 
he was known as ''The Gentleman," and was 
regarded as slightly eccentric. But here, as 
everywhere, the recollection of his kindliness 
and generosity lingered in men's minds. No 
tramp or beggar ever applied to him in vain. 

In August, 1771, the " History of England" 
was published, and to this and another work 
upon which he had been engaged he refers in a 
letter addressed from the Temple to Bennet 
Langton, ''at Langton, near Spilsby, in Lincoln- 
shire," and dated the 17th of the following Sep- 
tember. " I have published, or Davies has 
published for me,'' he says, " an Abridgment of 
the History of England, for which I have been a 
good deal abused in the newspapers for betray- 
ing the liberties of the people. God knows I 
had no thought for or against liberty in my 
head ; my whole aim being to make up a book 
of a decent size, that, as ' Squire Richard says. 



2o8 Oliver Goldsmith 

would do no harm to nobody. However they 
set me down as an arrant Tory, and conse- 
quently an honest man. When you come to 
look at any part of it, you'll say that I am a sour 
Whig."^ On other of his occupations also the 
letter throws light. The " Natural History," 
he says, is about half-finished ; and he will 
shortly finish the rest, he adds, with a sigh over 
" this kind of finishing," and his " scurvy cir- 
cumstances." But he has been doing something 
— he has for the last three months been trying 
" to make people laugh." He has been strol- 
ling about the hedges, " studying jests with the 
most tragical countenance." This, with an- 
other passage at the beginning of the letter, in 
which he says he has " been almost wholly in 
the country at a farmer's house, quite alone, try- 
ing to write a comedy,"^ is the first indication 
of his having again turned his attention to the 
stage. The new play was now finished, but 
when or how it would be acted, or whether it 
would be acted at all, were questions he could 
not resolve. 

The occurrences which intervened between 
its completion and production may be rapidly 
abridged. One of the occasional pieces of this 

1 Miscellaneous Works, 1801, i, 93. 

2 Ibid., i, 92. 



A Memoir 209 

date was a prologue to " Zobeide," a transla- 
tion or adaptation of an unfinished tragedy by 
Voltaire called " Les Scythes." Its author 
was a gentleman of Leicestershire named Joseph 
Cradock, who, about this time, had been intro- 
duced to Goldsmith by Yates, the actor, and 
maintained a fast friendship for him during the 
remainder of his life — a friendship concerning 
which Cradock, in his old age, published some 
rather mythical recollections. In February, 
1772, the death of the Princess Dowager of 
Wales prompted Goldsmith, for some unex- 
plained reason, to prepare a laraent-to-order, 
which he entitled ^' Threnodia Augustalis." It 
was sung and recited at the famous Mrs. 
Cornelys' in Soho Square, but has little more 
than the merit of opportunism, and was very 
hastily composed. Between these two comes, 
in all probability, the lively letter in prose and 
verse to Catherine Horneck, now Mrs. Bun- 
bury of Barton, first published by Prior in 1837, 
from the Bunbury papers. Under cover of a 
reply to an invitation to spend Christmas in the 
country, the letter goes off into a charming 
piece of rhyming banter, in which Mrs. Bun- 
bury and her sister are arraigned at the Old 
Bailey for giving disingenuous counsel to the 
poet at Loo : — 

14 



2IO 



Oliver Goldsmith 



" Both are placed at the bar, with all proper decorum, 
With bunches of fennel and nosegays before 'em ; ^ 
Both cover their faces with mobs and all that, 
But the judge bids them, angrily, take off their hat. 
When uncovered, a buzz of inquiry runs round — 
' Pray what are their crimes ? ' — ' They 've been pilfer- 
ing found.' 

* But, pray, who[m] have they pilfer'd ? ' — * A doctor, 

I hear.* 

* What, yon solemn-faced, odd-looking man that stands 

near ! ' 

* The same.' — * What a pity ! how does it surprise one, 
Two handsomer culprits I never set eyes on!' 

Then their friends all come round me with cringing 

and leering, 
To melt me to pity, and soften my swearing. 
First Sir Charles advances with phrases well strung, 

* Consider, dear Doctor, the girls are but young ; ' 
The younger the worse,' I return him again, 

* It shows that their habits are all dyed in grain.' 

* But then they 're so handsome, one's bosom it grieves. 

* What signifies handsome, when people are thieves.'* 

* But where is your justice ? their cases are hard.' 

* What sXgni^es Justice ? I want the reward.' " 

And then the letter, with its ingenuity of com- 
pliment, heightened by the touch as to that 
" solemn-faced, odd-looking man," the writer, 
drops into parish-beadle recitative and ends : — 

1 A practice dating from the gaol-fever of 1750. 
Compare the Old Bailey scene in Cruikshank's " Drunk- 
ard's Children," 1848, plate v. 



A Memoir 211 

" ' But consider their case, — it may yet be your own ! 
And see how they kneel ! Is your heart made of stone ? * 
This moves : — so at last I agree to relent, 
For ten pounds in hand, and ten pounds to be spent. 

I challenge you all to answer this : I tell you, you cannot. 
It cuts deep; — but now for the rest of the letter: and 
next — but I want room — so I believe I shall battle the 
rest out at Barton some day next week. 

" I don't value you all ! 

« O. G." 

By this time, retouched and revised, the 
comedy of which Goldsmith had written to 
Langton, was in Colman's hands. Unhappily, 
in Colman's hands it remained. At the end 
of 1772 he had not made up his mind whether 
he would say "yes" or *' no" to Goldsmith's 
repeated applications for his decision — appli- 
cations which the poet's necessities made upon 
each occasion more importunate. In January, 
1773, referring to these, he pressed urgently 
for a final reply. He petitioned for at least 
the same measure which had been given to " as 
bad plays as his," and he even humbled himself 
so far as to offer to make alterations. Thereupon 
Colman took him at his word, and suggested 
numerous frivolous amendments, under the 
momentary irritation of which the smarting poet 
offered the manuscript to Garrick, withdrawing 



212 Oliver Goldsmith 

it again as speedily. Then stout old Johnson 
took the matter up, using the strongest per- 
suasions (even '' a kind of force") to Colman, 
the result being that a definite promise to 
produce the play was at length wrung from 
that potentate, although against his judgment. 
" Dr. Goldsmith," wrote Johnson shortly after- 
wards, " has a new comedy in rehearsal at 
Covent Garden, to which the manager predicts 
ill-success. I hope he will be mistaken. I 
think it deserves a very kind reception."^ 

The production at the Haymarket in Febru- 
ary of Footers famous Primitive Puppet Show 
of the " Handsome Housemaid ; or. Piety in 
Pattens," which certainly counts as an impor- 
tant factor in the story of the crusade against 
sentimental comedy, opportunely aided in pre- 
paring the popular taste. But the fates were, 
even now, too much against Goldsmith to make 
his success an easy one. The prejudice of 
Colman communicated itself to the company, 
and one after another of the leading actors threw 
up their parts. That of the first gentleman fell 
to Lee Lewes, the theatrical harlequin, while 
the best character in the piece was assigned to 
Quick, who, in "The Good Natur'd Man," 
had filled no more important office than that 
1 Hill's BoswelFs Johnson, 1887, ii, 208. 



A Memoir 213 

of a post-boy. Fresh troubles arose respect- 
ing the epilogue, of which no less than four 
different versions were written, in consequence 
of objections raised by the manager and the 
actresses. Finally, until a few days before 
the play appeared, it was still without a name. 
Reynolds advocated " The Belle's Stratagem," 
a title afterwards used by Mrs. Cowley ; some 
one else '^The Old House a New Inn," which 
certainly summarised the main idea, borrowed 
from Goldsmith's Ardagh experiences as nar- 
rated in chapter i. ; while for some time "The 
Mistakes of a Night" found a measure of 
favour. Then Goldsmith, perhaps remember- 
ing, as Mr. Forster suggests, a line from Dry- 
den, fixed upon " She Stoops to Conquer," to 
which " The Mistakes of a Night " was added 
as a sub-title. On the 1 5th of March, 1773, the 
play was acted at Covent Garden, and a few 
days afterwards published in book form, with a 
dedication to its firm friend, Johnson. " I do 
not mean," wrote the grateful author, " so much 
to compliment you as myself. It may do me some 
honour to inform the public, that I have lived 
many years in intimacy with you. It may serve 
the interests of mankind also to inform them, that 
the greatest wit may be found in a character, 
without impairing the most unaffected piety." 



214 Oliver Goldsmith 

To the very last Colman maintained his un- 
hopeful attitude, in spite of the steady en- 
thusiasm of the author's friends, who, after 
dining together at a tavern, had, under John- 
son's generalship, proceeded in a body to the 
theatre, determined to make a stubborn fight 
for the piece. But, according to the best 
accounts, there was no necessity for any ad- 
vocacy, hostile or otherwise, for, " quite the 
reverse to everybody's expectation," the play 
was received " with the utmost applause/' 
Even Horace Walpole, who sneered aristocrat- 
ically at its " lowness," and wrote flippantly 
about the author's draggled Muse, could not 
deny that it " succeeded prodigiously." " All 
eyes," says Cumberland, " were upon Johnson, 
who sat in a front row of a side box, and when 
he laughed everybody . thought himself war- 
ranted to roar."^ In the mean time, the poor 
author, who had not dared to accompany his 
party to Covent Garden, was wandering dis- 
consolately in the Mall. Here he was discov- 
ered by a friend, who pointed out to him that, 
in the event of *any sudden alterations being 
required, his absence from the theatre might 
have serious results, and prevailed upon him to 
go there. *' He entered the stage door," Cools 

1 Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, 1807, i, 368. 



A Memoir 215 

tells us, ** just in the middle of the ^th Act, 
when there was a hiss at the improbability of 
Mrs. Hardcastle supposing herself forty miles 
off, though on her own grounds, and near the 
house. * What 's that ? ' says the Doctor, terri- 
fied at the sound. * Psha ! Doctor,' says Col- 
man, who was standing by the side of the scene, 
' don't be fearful of squibs, when we have been 
sitting almost these two hours upon a barrel 
of gunpowder.' " ^ Goldsmith, adds Cook, never 
forgave Colman this gratuitous piece of malice. 
The success of " She Stoops to Conquer" 
was thoroughly deserved. It was an immense 
improvement upon its predecessor. Compared 
with Croaker and Lofty, Tony Lumpkin and 
Mr. Hardcastle are as characters to characteris- 
tics, while Mrs. Hardcastle, Hastings, Young 
Marlowe, Miss Hardcastle, and Miss Neville, 
are far beyond the Honeywoods and Richlands 
of "The Good Natur'd Man." Whatever there 
may be of farcical in the plot, vanished before 
the hearty laughter that the piece raised on its 
first appearance, and has raised ever since. " I 
know of no comedy for many years (said John- 
son) that has answered so much the great end 
of comedy — making an audience merry." ^ 

1 European Magazine, September, 1793, p. 173. 

2 Hill's '^o's>^€i^s Johnson, 1887, ii, 233. 



2i6 Oliver Goldsmith 

That such an inexhaustible bequest of mirth 
should have come to us from a man tortured 
with nervous apprehensions, and struggling 
with money difficulties, is a triumphant testi- 
mony to the superiority of genius over circum- 
stance. It is consolatory to think that, in spite 
of every obstacle, *' She Stoops to Conquer" 
was acted for many nights, and, besides being 
twice commanded by royalty itself, brought its 
author, at his benefits, the more substantial 
gratification of some four or five hundred 
pounds, to which must be added a further 
amount from the publication of the play in book 
form. 



CHAPTER XI 

A libellous attack and its sequel; dining out at Oglethorpe's and 
Paoli's; "The Grumbler"; more task work; "Grecian His- 
tory " ; " Dictionary of Arts and Sciences " ; " Retaliation " ; 
epitaphs on Garrick and Reynolds ; epitaph on Caleb White- 
foord ; last illness; dies, April 4, 1774 ; buried on the 9th in 
the burying-ground of the Temple Church; Johnson's epitaph; 
memorials and statue. 

'VT^HILE the "news-paper witlings" and 
" pert scribbling folks " ^ vied with each 
other in exulting over the glorious defeat, by 
**She Stoops to Conquer," of the allied forces 
of sentimental comedy, and amused themselves 
by planting arrowy little epigrams in the sides 
of Mr. Manager Colman and Mr. Staymaker 
Kelly, insomuch that the former implored the 
author " to take him off the rack of the news- 
papers," there were not wanting those who, 
on the other hand, essayed to disparage Gold- 
smith himself. In The London Packet of the 
24th of March appeared a letter signed "Tom 
Tickle," headed by the motto " Vous vous 
noye\ par vanite,"" and attacking him venom- 

1 Postscript to Retaliation. 



2i8 Oliver Goldsmith 

ously at all points. He was charged with 
puffing his own productions: his "Traveller" 
was said to be " a flimsy poem, built upon false 
principles ; " his " Good Natur'd Man," a 
*' poor, water-gruel, dramatic dose ; " his " De- 
serted Village," " easy numbers, without fancy, 
dignity, genius, or fire;" and "She Stoops to 
Conquer," a " speaking pantomime " and " an 
incoherent piece of stuff." Lastly, he was en- 
joined to " reduce his vanity," and to endeavour 
to believe that, as a man, he ^' was of the plain- 
est sort ; and as an author, but a mortal piece 
of mediocrity." ^ 

There is little doubt that the dealer of this 
stab in the dark was Goldsmith's old enemy, 
Kenrick, and the mere abuse which it contained 
was of little moment. But towards the begin- 
ning of the letter, where Goldsmith is accused 
of being a very Narcissus for pleased contem- 
plation of his personal advantages, it goes on : 
*' Was but the lovely H k as much enam- 
oured, you would not sigh, my gentle swain, in 
vain." ^ This, it must be admitted, was unpar- 
donable, and Goldsmith was justly indignant. 
According to Cradock, to make matters worse, 
he dined with the Hornecks in Westminster al- 

1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 408, 409. 

2 Ibid., ii, 408. 



A Memoir 219 

most immediately after they had read the article, 
and found them all greatly disturbed. Dinner 
being over, he went straight to the shop of the 
publisher, a Welshman named Evans, in Pater- 
noster Row, accompanied, says one account, by 
the lady's brother, Captain Horneck, or, says 
another, by that Captain Higgins who, in the 
" Haunch of Venison," is celebrated " for mak- 
ing a blunder, or picking a bone." Mr. Forster 
thinks that Higgins is most likely to have been 
the poet's companion ; but if Cradock's state- 
ment as to his dining with the family is true, it 
is surely not improbable that he should have 
gone with Captain Horneck. However, what 
happened at the shop was communicated to 
Prior by an eye-witness, Evans's assistant, Mr. 
Harris. Being asked by the two gentlemen 
whether Evans was at home, he says : " I called 
the latter from an adjoining room and heard 
Goldsmith say to him — ' I have called in con- 
sequence of a scurrilous attack in your paper upon 
me (my name is Goldsmith), and an unwarrant- 
able liberty taken with the name of a young 
lady. As for myself, I care little, but her name 
must not be sported with.' Evans, declaring his 
ignorance of the matter, said he would speak to 
the editor, and stooping down for the file of the 
paper to look for the oifensive article, the poet 



220 Oliver Goldsmith 

struck him smartly with his cane across the 
back. Evans, who was sturdy, returned the 
blow with interest, when, in the scuffle, a lamp 
suspended overhead was broken, and the oil fell 
upon the combatants ; one of the shopmen was 
sent for a constable, but in the meantime Dr. 
Kenrick, who had been all the time in the ad- 
joining room, and who, it was pretty certain, 
was really author of the newspaper article, came 
forward, separated the parties, and sent Gold- 
smith home in a coach. Captain Horneck ex- 
pressed his surprise at the assault, declaring he 
had no previous intimation of such a design on 
the part of the Poet, who had merely requested 
that he should accompany him to Paternoster 
Row. Evans took steps to indict him for an 
assault ; but subsequently a compromise took 
place by his assailant agreeing to pay fifty 
pounds to a Welsh charity."^ This, however, 
was not effected until after Goldsmith had 
written a dignified letter to The Daily Adver- 
tiser on the "licentiousness" of the press, 
which, as may be supposed, made itself very 
merry over his misadventure. Silence would, 
no doubt, have been wiser ; though even John- 
son was obliged to admit that the letter was " a 
foolish thing well done." 

1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 411-12. 



A Memoir 221 

But from Goldsmith scuffling with a book- 
seller under a cataract of lamp-oil — certainly a 
most ill-advised mode of " stooping to con- 
quer," as the wits did not fail to remind him — 
it is pleasant to turn to Goldsmith chatting and 
chirruping in the company of his friends. A 
week or two later Boswell gives an account of 
a dinner at General Oglethorpe's with " Dr. 
Major'' and "Dr. Minor,'" when Goldsmith 
held forth on his favourite theme of luxury and 
the consequent degeneration of the race — a 
position which Johnson contested. After dinner 
they drank tea with the ladies, to whom Gold- 
smith sang Tony Lumpkin's capital song of the 
"Three Jolly Pigeons," and the pretty quatrains 
("Ah me, when shall I marry me?") to the 
tune of the " Humours of Balamagairy," which 
Boswell published some years later in The 
London Maga:{ine. Moore also used the air in 
the " Irish Melodies ; " but scarcely as happily 
as Goldsmith, and it is to be regretted that the 
song had to be omitted from " She Stoops to 
Conquer " because Mrs. Bulkley (who played 
Miss Hardcastle) could not sing. Goldsmith 
himself, says Boswell, sang it very agreeably. 
Two days later the trio met again at General 
Paoli's. Boswell chronicles a long conversa- 
tion, the only portion of which can have a place 



222 Oliver Goldsmith 

here is a compliment by the General to Gold- 
smith. Paoli referred to a passage in " She 
Stoops to Conquer " which was supposed, 
rightly or wrongly, to make oblique allusion to 
the recent marriage of the Duke of Gloucester 
and Lady Waldegrave.-^ That " literary leech,'' 
Boswell, ever on the watch for ana, forthwith 
attempted to entice Goldsmith into an admission 
of this intention. He smiled and hesitated in his 
usual way ; and the General came to his aid. 
*' Monsieur Goldsmith est comme la mer, qui jette 
des pedes et beaucoup d^autres belles choses, sans 
s'en apercevoir.'' Goldsmith was highly de- 
lighted. " Trds bien dit et trhs dUgamment,^' 
was his flattered comment. There was another 
dinner at Thrale's still later ; but it can have no 
record in these pages. 

In August his gratitude to Shuter for his 
presentment of Tony Lumpkin prompted him 
to adapt for that actor's benefit a dull play by 
Brueys and Palaprat, " Le Grondeur," which 
he shortened into a farce under the title of 
'' The Grumbler." It was produced at Covent 
Garden on the 8th of May ; but never received 

1 See Act ii., where Hastings says : " If my dearest 
girl will trust in her faithful Hastings, we shall soon be 
landed in France, where even among slaves the laws of 
marriage are respected." 



A Memoir 223 

the honours of repetition. Prior included a 
scene from it in the " Miscellaneous Works" 
of 1837, and it is generally reprinted with the 
author's other plays. But, although from a 
note written in this year to Garrick, he appears 
to have been still dreaming of a future comedy, 
" in a season or two at farthest," ^ which he 
fancied he should make a fine thing, he was 
hopelessly in bondage to the hack work by 
which he lived. In the intervals of the " Ani- 
mated Nature " he had been engaged with a 
*' Grecian History," for which, in June, 1773, 
upon the completion of the first volume, he 
received ^2 50 from Griffin, probably a nominal 
payment only, as he was in debt to the pub- 
lisher for arrears already due. He also medi- 
tated a popular " Dictionary of Arts and 
Sciences," of which he was to be editor, with 
Johnson, Reynolds, Burke, Burney, Garrick, 
and all his friends as contributors. For this 
he drew up an elaborate prospectus, said by 
Cradock and others to be excellently conceived, 
but no longer known to exist. The booksellers, 
however, shrank from so large an enterprise, 
and the matter made no progress. Perhaps, 
too, as Davies and others suggest, they dis- 
trusted the organising capacity of a worker 

1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 439- 



224 Oliver Goldsmith 

so needy, so overburdened, and so irregular in 
his habits. Queer errors sometimes made their 
appearance in his rapidly written books. There 
had been such in his histories, and an anecdote 
is told by Dawson Turner which shows that 
he must often have been hasty as to his authori- 
ties. Once, when engaged on the '' History 
of Greece," he asked Gibbon the name of the 
Indian king who gave Alexander so much 
trouble, and when Gibbon jestingly answered, 
" Montezuma," he had to correct himself im- 
mediately lest Goldsmith should commit the 
statement to type. 

In the collapse of the Dictionary scheme his 
thoughts reverted to "The Good Natur'd 
Man," and he wrote to Garrick offering to 
recast that comedy, at the same time asking 
for a loan. Garrick lent the money ; but did 
not accept the proposal, which he labelled 
" Goldsmith's parlaver " and put away. After 
this there is not much to relate in Goldsmith's 
life, which, notwithstanding the growing burden 
of breaking health and increased embarrassment, 
seems still to have had its delights. There are 
glimpses of him at Drury Lane on the first night 
of Kelly's comedy of the " School for Wives ; " 
at Beauclerk's with Garrick, making an entire 
company shriek with laughter over some panto- 



A Memoir 225 

mimic buffoonery ; at Vauxhall with Sir Joshua. 
'' Sir Joshua and Goldsmith," writes Beau- 
clerk, as late as February, 1774, "have got 
into such a round of pleasures that they have 
no time."^ And in these last days an accident 
brought about the composition of one of his 
cleverest pieces, which, although never com- 
pleted, will probably be remembered as long as 
*' The Deserted Village." According to the 
now accepted story, a party at the St. James's 
Coffee-house, prompted thereto by some gas- 
conade of Goldsmith, fell into the whim of 
writing competitive epitaphs upon him, Garrick 
led off with the well-known impromptu : 

** Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, 
Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll ; " 

and others followed. Goldsmith, rather discon- 
certed by the ready applause which followed 
Garrick's neat antithesis, deferred the revenge 
which he was invited to take, and continued to 
work desultorily at his reply until a few days 
before his death, shortly after which it was 
published by Kearsly under the name of " Re- 
taliation : Including Epitaphs on the Most 
Distinguished Wits of the Metropolis." By a 
recollection of the famous picnic dinners of 
1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 510. 
15 



2 26 Oliver Goldsmith 

Scarron (whose ^* Roman Comique," among 
other hack-work, he had just been translating), 
he began with likening his friends to dishes, but 
speedily wound into that incomparable series of 
epigrammatic portraits which is to-day one of 
the most graphic picture-galleries of his immedi- 
ate contemporaries. Johnson is conspicuously 
absent, perhaps because, though one of the 
company, he had not joined in the initial attack, 
— perhaps, also, because the poem is un- 
finished ; but Burke, Reynolds, Cumberland, 
and Garrick are admirably portrayed. Between 
these, in point of literary art, there is little to 
choose, unless the mingling of satire, compli- 
ment, and faithful characterisation is held to 
reach its acme in the admirable lines on 
Garrick : — 

" Here lies David Garrick, describe me, who. can. 
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man ; 
As an actor, confess'd without rival to shine : 
As a wit, if not first, in the very first line : 
Yet, with talents like these, and an excellent heart, 
The man had his failings, a dupe to his art. 
Like an ill-judging beauty, his colours he spread, 
And beplaster'd with rouge his own natural red. 
On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting ; 
'T was only that when he was off he was acting. 
With no reason on earth to go out of his way, 
He turn'd and he varied full ten times a day. 



A Memoir 227 

Though secure of our hearts, yet confoundedly sick 

If they were not his own by finessing and trick : 

He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack, 

For he knew when he pleas'd he could whistle thetn back. 

Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, 

And the puff of a dunce he mistook it for fame ; 

Till his relish grown callous, almost to disease, 

Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please. 

But let us be candid, and speak out our mind, 

If dunces applauded, he paid them in kind. 

Ye Kendricks, ye Kellys, and Woodfalls so grave, 

What a commerce was yours, while you got and you gave ! 

How did Grub Street re-echo the shouts that you rais'd. 

While he was be-Roscius'd, and you were be-prais'd I 

But peace to his spirit, wherever it flies, 

To act as an angel, and mix with the skies ; 

Those poets, who owe their best fame to his skill, 

Shall still be his flatterers, go where he will. 

Old Shakespeare, receive him, with praise and with love, 

And Beaumonts and Bens be his Kellys above ! " 

*' The sum of all that can be said for and 
against Mr. Garrick, some people think, may 
be found in these lines of Goldsmith," wrote 
Thomas Davies.^ When Garrick's own biogra- 
pher is obliged to admit so much, there can be 
little doubt of the accuracy of the portrait. 
Next in importance to this, composed in an 
inimitable spirit of irony, comes the sketch of 
Cumberland, which, in his old age, that writer 
seems to have grown to regard as entirely com- 

1 Life of Garrick, 1780, ii, 159. 



228 Oliver Goldsmith 

plimentary. Burke's character, too, contains 
some famous couplets, seldom forgotten when 
his name is recalled. But the most delightful, 
because the most wholly genial and kindly, of 
the epitaphs, is that upon Reynolds : — 

" Here Reynolds is laid, and, to tell you my mind, 
He has not left a better or wiser behind : 
His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand ; 
His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ; 
Still born to improve us in every part, 
His pencil our faces, his manners our heart : 
To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering. 
When they judg'd without skill he was still hard of 

hearing : 
When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and 

stuff. 
He shifted his trumpet, and only took snufif." 

Malone says that half a line more had been 
written when Goldsmith dropped the pen ; and 
Prior, who gives the words as " By flattery un- 
spoiled," affirms that, among several erasures in 
the manuscript, they "remained unaltered."^ 
To the fifth edition was appended a " Post- 
script," containing a supplementary epitaph on 
Caleb Whitefoord, who had also been one of 
the party at the St. James's Coffee-house, and 
was the inventor of the famous " Cross-Read- 

1 Prior's Life, 1837, ii, 499. 



A Memoir 229 

ings," which proved so popular circa 1766-70. 
It presents some of Goldsmith's peculiarities 
and negligences ; but is not entirely free from 
the suspicion that Whitefoord wrote it himself.^ 
The appearance of " Retaliation " brought 
about a number of ex post facto epitaphs, most 
of which, in all probability, their writers would 
have been pleased to pass off as the original 
productions to which Goldsmith had been in- 
vited to reply. Garrick, who wrote the best of 
these {"■ Here, Hermes 1 says Jove, who with 
nectar was mellow "), at one time meditated 
their publication ; but his intention was never 
carried out, and, as already stated, Goldsmith's 
death took place before "Retaliation" was 
given to the world. Still working at that poem, 
and still planning fresh compilations which 
were to enable him to cope with his difficulties, 
he had gone again to his Edgeware home, when 
a sharp attack of a local disorder, induced by 
his sedentary habits, obliged him to seek medi- 
cal advice in town. To London he accordingly 
returned in the middle of March. He saw a 
doctor, and obtained relief. But low fever 
supervened, and on the 25th (one of the club 
Fridays) he took to his bed. At eleven at 

1 The recently published Whitefoord Papers^ 1898, 
throw no light on this point. 



230 Oliver Goldsmith 

night he sent for a surgeon-apothecary in the 
Strand named Hawes, ^ who found him ex- 
tremely ill, but bent upon curing himself by Dr. 
James's Fever Powders, a patent medicine upon 
which he had been accustomed to rely. Hawes 
did not think it suited to his condition, which 
was more nervous than febrile, and endeavoured 
to induce him to try other remedies. Failing 
in this, he persuaded him to send for a physician, 
Dr. Fordyce, who confirmed his view of the 
case. Goldsmith, however, still clung obstin- 
ately to James's nostrum, and rejected the 
medicine prescribed by Dr. Fordyce. After 
taking the powder he became worse, and was 
obliged to resign himself to the advice of those 
about him. Becoming exceedingly weak and 
sleepless, he lingered for a week longer in a 
state that caused the gravest anticipations, 
although he was conscious, and sometimes (it is 

1 William Hawes, who afterwards wrote " An Account 
of the late Dr. Goldsmith's Illness, etc.," was the grand- 
father of Sir Benjamin Hawes, once Under-Secretary at 
War. William Hawes undertook the active management 
of Goldsmith's affairs pending the arrival of his relatives 
from Ireland, and arranged the sale of the books, &c. 
Goldsmith's worn old wooden writing-desk, which- be- 
longed to Hawes, is now in the South Kensington 
Museum. There is a monument to Hawes in Islington 
New Church which has been engraved by Basire. 



A Memoir 231 

said) even cheerful. Dr. Turton, a second 
physician who had been called in, remarking the 
disorder of his pulse, asked if his mind was at 
ease. " No, it is not," was the reply. These 
were the last words he spoke. On the morning 
of Monday, the 4th of April, 1774, after a long- 
hoped-for sleep, he died in strong convulsions, 
having lived forty-five years and five months. 
The announcement of his death came like a 
shock upon his friends. Burke burst into tears ; 
Sir Joshua laid aside his pencil for the day ; and 
a deeper gloom settled upon Johnson. At 
Brick Court other, and humbler mourners, to 
whom he had been kind, filled the little stair- 
case with their sorrow ; and, as he lay in his 
coffin, a lock of his hair was cut from his head 
for the " Jessamy Bride " and her sister.^ On 
Saturday the 9th, after some discussion as to a 
public funeral, which was abandoned on account 
of the state of his affairs, he was buried quietly 
in the burying-ground of the Temple Church, 
none weeping more profusely over his grave 
than his old rival, Hugh Kelly. Two years 
later, a monument, with a medallion portrait by 
NoUekens, and an epitaph by Johnson, the 

1 It is still in the possession of Mrs. Gwyn's repre- 
sentatives. The " Jessamy Bride " was painted by 
Hoppner. 



232 Oliver Goldsmith 

story of which must be read in Boswell, was 
erected to him in Westminster Abbey at the ex- 
pense of the Literary Club. Johnson's Latin 
— for he refused to "disgrace" that time- 
honoured fane by English, ran as follows : — 

Olivarii Goldsmith 

Poetae, Physici, Historici, 

qui nullum fere scribendi genus 

non tetigit, 
nullum quod tetigit non ornavit: 
sive risus essent movendi, 
sive lacrymae, 
affectuum potens, at lenis dominator; 
ingenio sublimis, vividus, versatilis ; 
oratione grandis, nitidus, venustus : 
hoc monumento memoriam coluit 
Sodalium amor, 
Amicorum fides, 
Lectorum veneratio. 
Natus Hibernia, Forneias Lonfordiensis 
in loco cui nomen Pallas 

Nov. XXix. MDCCXXXI. 

Eblanae literis institutus, 

Objit Londini 

Ap. iv. MDCCLXXIV.l 

1 Croker translates this as follows : — "Of Pliver 
Goldsmith — a Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, who left 
scarcely any style of writing untouched, and touched 
nothing that he did not adorn; of all the passions, 
whether smiles were to be moved or tears, a powerful 
yet gentle master ^ in genius, sublime, vivid, versatile ; 



A Memoir 233 

The date of birth, it will be seen, is inaccu- 
rately given. Many years after this monument 
had been erected in Westminster, a tablet, now 
removed to the triforium, was put up in the 
Temple Church by the Benchers. But the exact 
spot where Oliver Goldsmith lies is not known, 
although a flat stone marks it conjecturally, and 
is perhaps more piously visited by pilgrims 
than either of the other memorials. In Jan- 
uary, 1864, a full-length statue by Foley, the 
Academician, was placed in front of Dublin 
University.^ 

in style, elevated, clear, elegant — the love of Compan- 
ions, the fidelity of Friends, and the veneration of 
Readers, have by this monument honoured the memory. 
He was born in Ireland, at a place called Pallas [in the 
parish] of Forney, [and county] of Longford, on the 29th 
November, 1731. Educated at [the University of] Dub- 
lin, and died in London, 4th April, I774-" 

^ " Retaliation " (see p. 225) was published on the 
19th April, a fortnight after its author's death. In June 
followed "Animated Nature," and in 1776 ** The Haunch 
of Venison," to which were added two songs from "The 
Captivity," an oratorio written in 1764, but not published 
as a whole until 1820. 



CHAPTER XII 

Portraits of Goldsmith ; testimonies as to character; money diffi- 
culties and " folly of expense ; " alleged love of play; of fine 
clothes and entertainments; generosity and benevolence ; 
alleged envy and malice; position in society; conversation; 
relations with Johnson ; conclusion. 

OOMETHING of Goldsmith's personal ap- 
^^ pearance will already have been gathered 
from the foregoing pages, and more particularly 
from the letter to his brother quoted at the 
beginning of chapter iv. He was short and 
stoutly built. His complexion was pale or 
sallow, and he was deeply scarred by the small- 
pox. His scant hair was brown, his eyes 
gray or hazel, and his forehead, which was 
rather low, projected in a way that is easily 
exaggerated in some of the copies of his por- 
traits. Yet "his features" — if we may trust 
one who knew him — though "plain," were 
" not repulsive, — certainly not so whenlighted 
up by conversation." Another witness, Mrs. 
Gwyn, says that his countenance bore every 
trace of his unquestionable benevolence. His 



A Memoir 235 

true likeness must probably be sought between 
the slightly grotesque sketch by his friend Bun- 
bury, prefixed to the early editions of " The 
Haunch of Venison," and the portrait by Rey- 
nolds at Knole Park, of which there is a copy 
in the National Portrait Gallery. Mr. Forster 
is severe upon Bunbury's " caricature ; " but it 
should be remembered that " The Jessamy 
Bride " (who, even if prejudiced in favour of her 
brother-in-law's art, can scarcely be suspected 
of any desire to depreciate Goldsmith) declares 
that it "gives the head with admirable fidelity 
as he actually lived among us." " Nothing 
(she adds) can exceed its truth." On the other 
hand, she says of Reynolds's picture, that " it 
was painted as a fine poetical head for the 
admiration of posterity," but " was not the 
man as seen in daily life." This is obviously 
just. In the noble portrait by Sir Joshua per- 
sonal regard has idealised the resemblance, 
and the artist, to use his familiar phrase, has 
put into his sitter's head something from his 
own. His finely perceptive genius has fixed for 
ever the most appealing characteristics of his 
friend's inner nature, his " exquisite sensibility 
of contempt," his wistful hunger for recognition, 
his craving to be well with all men. The only 
other portrait which needs mention is that pre- 



236 Oliver Goldsmith 

fixed to Evans's edition of the " Poetical and 
Dramatic Works." It stands (with less in- 
dividuality) between the other two, and may be 
a copy of the miniature to which Goldsmith refers 
in his letter to his brother Maurice, of January, 
1770. ^' I have sent my cousin Jenny a miniature 
picture of myself, as I believe it is the most 
acceptable present I can offer. . . . The face 
you know is ugly enough, but it is finely painted." 
The words last quoted might be adduced as 
evidence that Goldsmith was not always as vain 
as some of his contemporaries would have us 
believe. He was, in reality, of so open and un- 
guarded a disposition, and so wholly incapable 
of any conventional concealment of his thoughts 
and emotions, that in collecting anecdotes to 
illustrate his character, it is of the first impor- 
tance to ascertain whether the narrator is a 
friend or an enemy. Side by side with many 
rare and noble qualities. Goldsmith had many 
weaknesses, which were sometimes, especially 
to unsympathetic observers, far more manifest 
than his merits. '^The doctor," says one con- 
temporary, '* was a perfect Heteroclite, an 
inexplicable existence in creation ; such a com- 
pound of absurdity, envy, and malice, contrasted 
M^ith the opposite virtues of kindness, generos- 
ity, and benevolence, that he might be said to 



A Memoir 237 

consist of two distinct souls, and influenced by 
the agency of a good and bad spirit." ^ This was 
the opinion of Davies the bookseller, who had 
known him intimately, and could hardly be 
described as either friend or foe, unless his 
position as Garrick's biographer puts him ex 
officio in the latter category. But the passage 
serves to show that Goldsmith was, above all, a 
man of whom, to echo a Greek idiom, we should 
" truth it in love," and, in this connection, the 
testimony of witnesses such as Johnson and 
Reynolds, or even as Glover and Cook, is of 
far greater import than that of Walpole, or Bos- 
well, or Hawkins, who scarcely ever speak of 
him without an accent of disdain or patronage. 

That Goldsmith's last years were one pro- 
longed struggle with embarrassment has been 
sufficiently asserted. It seems equally clear 
that his difficulties arose less from lack of means, 
or inadequate remuneration, than from his con- 
stitutional heedlessness. Nor can it be doubted 
that they played their part in shortening his 
life. " Of poor dear Dr. Goldsmith" — wrote 
Johnson to Boswell — "there is little to be 
told, more than the papers have made pub- 
lick. He died of a fever, made, I am afraid, 
more violent by uneasiness of mind. His debts 
1 Life of Garrick, 1780, ii, 142. 



23,8 Oliver Goldsmith 

began to be heavy, and all his resources were 
exhausted. Sir Joshua is of opinion that he 
owed not less than two thousand pounds. Was 
ever poet so trusted before ? " ^ To Langton, in 
a letter bearing the next day's date, the story is 
the same. " He [Goldsmith] died of a fever, 
exasperated, as I believe, by the fear of distress. 
He had raised money and squandered it, by 
every artifice of acquisition, and folly of ex- 
pense. But let not his frailties be remem- 
bered ; he was a very great man."^ These 
utterances are, in part, confirmed by the record, 
incomplete as it must necessarily be, of the 
amounts he had received since the success of 
"The Good Natur'd Man" in 1768. A rough 
calculation of his ascertained gains from that date 
gives over ;^3 ,000 — a sum, in all probability, 
much below his actual receipts. If, as Rey- 
nolds thought, his debts came to " not less than 
;^2,ooo," he must, for the last six years of his 
life, have been living at the rate of at least ;^8oo 
a year, a sum which, to Johnson, with the 
modest pension of ;^300, out of which he 
managed to maintain so many other pensioners 
of his own, must have had all " the glitter of 
affluence." On the other hand, it should be 

1 Hiirs Boswell's Johnson, 1887, ii, 280, 

2 Ibid., ii, 280-1. 



A Memoir 239 

remembered that Goldsmith's income was not 
paid with the regularity of a State stipend. Yet 
it was an income which, with moderate care, 
might have sufficed for a bachelor. Even if the 
;^2,ooo debt be deducted, there still remains an 
income of ;^^oo, or ;^2oo more than Johnson's 
pension, and more than double the allowance 
Lord Auchinleck made to Boswell. To acquit 
Goldsmith of "folly of expense" is therefore 
impossible. It is clear that his money must have 
" burnt his pocket" as freely in his later years, 
as in those earlier days, when he first set out to 
study law in London. 

Johnson might have saved much speculation 
if he had thrown some light on the specific prod- 
igalities to which he indirectly refers. Was 
gambling one of them ? If we are to believe 
Cradock, it was. " The greatest real fault of 
Dr. Goldsmith," he says, '^ was, that if he had 
thirty pounds in his pocket, he would go into 
certain companies in the country, and in hopes 
of doubling the sum, would generally return to 
town without any part of it." ^ Cook and 
Davies speak much to the same effect ; and the 
fact that Garrick, in one of his epitaphs, calls 
him " gamester," may at least be taken to sig- 
nify that the accusation of play was currently 
1 Cradock's Literary Memoirs, 1826, i, 232. 



240 Oliver Goldsmith 

made against him. Moreoever, it had been 
alleged to be one of his especial temptations, 
even in his younger days, and when he was a 
student at Leyden. Both Mr. Forster and 
Mr. Prior, doubtless with praiseworthy inten- 
tions, endeavour to palliate this weakness, by 
proving that Goldsmith could not have " played 
high ; " but to a man with an uncertain income, a 
trifling loss would be far more disastrous than 
those easy thousands which Fox and Lord 
March flung away at the hazard table. Added 
to this he had apparently but few qualifications 
for success in this direction. He may have 
been unlucky at cards, but he was, admittedly, 
" exceedingly inexpert in their use," as well as 
impatient of temper. 

Another source of extravagance was un- 
doubtedly the succession of splendid garments, 
in which, with the assistance of Mr. William 
Filby, at the sign "of the Harrow, in Water 
Lane," he was wont, in Judge Day's expression, 
to " exhibit his muscular little person." This had 
been a frailty from his boyhood — witness the 
story of the Elphin red breeches, and the Edin- 
burgh student bills. Something of vanity was 
doubtless mingled with it, but the desire to ex- 
tenuate his personal shortcomings, and the mis- 
taken idea of the importance of fine clothes to 



A Memoir 241 

the gentleman, had also considerable influence. 
Certainly, in his better moments, he was fully 
conscious of the futility of squandering money 
in this way. Once Reynolds found him in a 
reverie, kicking a bundle mechanically round 
the room. Upon examination, this proved to 
be an expensive masquerade dress, which he 
had been tempted to purchase, and out of 
which, its temporary ends having been served, 
he was endeavouring, as he jestingly said^ to ex- 
tract the value in exercise. At his death he owed 
Filby ;^79, although only the previous year he 
had paid him sums amounting in all to ;^iio. 
It is but fair to add that £}^ of this ^79 was 
incurred for a ne'er-do-well nephew from Ire- 
land, who, when he afterwards became a pros- 
perous " squireen," never thought it due to his 
uncle's memory to discharge the balance. And 
nowhere more fitly than in this place can it be 
recorded that the tailor always spoke well of his 
distinguished debtor. '* He had been a good 
customer," said honest Mr. Filby of the Har- 
row ; " and had he lived would have paid every 
farthing." Nor was Mr. Filby the only person 
who was charitably disposed to that kindly 
spendthrift at Brick Court. There were two 
poor Miss Gunns, milliners at the corner of 
Temple Lane, who told Cradock that they 

16 



24^ Oliver Goldsmith 

would work for his friend for nothing, rather 
than that he should go elsewhere. " We are 
sure that he will pay us if he can."^ Such 
testimonies outbalance long files of overdue 
accounts. 

His paying the bills of his nephew Hodson 
explains another of his methods of spending 
money, which perhaps only the most rigid 
moralists will regard as a ^' folly of expense." 
There can be no doubt of his hospitality and 
generosity. His entertainments, when he was 
in a position to entertain, and, frequently when 
he was not, were of the most lavish character. 
Once, when one of his dinners had opened with 
more than usual profusion, Johnson and Rey- 
nolds, who suspected his pecuniary embarrass- 
ments, silently rebuked him by sending away 
the second course untouched — a mode of ad- 
monition surely more humiliating than salutary. 
As to his benevolence, it may fairly be said to 
have been boundless, though unhappily it was 
often ill-bestowed. If his benefactions had 
been confined to the poor women who carried 
away the remains of his breakfast on " shoe- 
maker's holidays," or to his landlady in Green 
Arbour Court, who, until his death, found in him 
a faithful friend, he might have been, if not a 

1 Cradock's Literary Memoirs, 1828, iv, 287, 



A Memoir 243 

rich^ at least a solvent man. But his literary 
prominence drew about him a host of parasites 
and petitioners, mostly from his native island, 
who practised upon his kind heart, and his com- 
passionate impulses. He had learned from his 
father to be a '' mere machine of pity," and the 
Purdons and Pilkingtons who preyed upon him, 
took care that the machine should not rust for 
lack of use. Upon the whole it may be con- 
cluded that more of his money went in this way 
than in any other. " His humanity and generos- 
ity," says Hawes, "greatly exceeded the nar- 
row limits of his fortune."^ And Hawes, as his 
temporary executor, had special facilities for 
knowing. 

The "envy and malice" with which he is 
credited by Davies were probably more appar- 
ent than real. Nevertheless his recorded atti- 
tude to Sterne, Gray, Beattie, Churchill, and 
others of his contemporaries, shows that he 
cannot be entirely absolved from hearing 

" in every breeze 
The laurels of Miltiades ; " 

and there are passages in Boswell, which, al- 
though they do not support the charge of malice, 
can scarcely be disregarded, even when every 
^ Account of the late Dr. Goldsmith's Illness, 1774, p. 20. 



244 Oliver Goldsmith 

allowance has been made for bias in the teller. 
" Talking of Goldsmith," writes Boswell, 
"Johnson said, he was very envious. I de- 
fended him, by observing that he owned it 
frankly upon all occasions. ' Sir ' [said John- 
son] * you are enforcing the charge. He had 
so much envy, that he could not conceal it. 
He was so full of it that he overflowed. He 
talked of it to be sure often enough. Now, 
Sir, what a man avows, he is not ashamed to 
think ; though many a man thinks, what he is 
ashamed to avow.' " ^ To this may be ap- 
pended a qualifying passage from Davies : 
*' Goldsmith was so sincere a man, that he 
could not conceal what was uppermost in his 
mind. ... His envy was so childish, and so 
absurd, that it may be very easily pardoned, for 
everybody laughed at it ; and no man was ever 
very mischievous whose errors excited mirth ; 
he never formed any scheme, or joined in any 
combination, to hurt any man living." ^ Closely 

1 Hill's Boswell's Johnson, 1887, iii, 271. 

2 Life of Garrick, 1780, ii, 162. Percy writes much to 
the same effect : " Whatever appeared of this kind was 
a mere momentary sensation, which he knew not how 
like other men to conceal. It was never the result of 
principle, or the suggestion of reflection; it never im- 
bittered his heart, nor influenced his conduct." {Miscel' 
laneous Works ^ 1801, i^ n?-) 



A Memoir 245 

allied to this uncontrollable candour of charac- 
ter was a simplicity which was part of his Irish 
nature, and which often made him the butt of 
his contemporaries. The anecdote of Gibbon's 
palming off Montezuma upon him for Porus has 
already been related. Another story told by 
Croker, exhibits him as the innocent dupe of 
Burke : " Colonel O'Moore, of Cloghan Castle 
in Ireland, told me an amusing instance of the 
mingled vanity and simplicity of Goldsmith, 
which (though, perhaps, coloured a little as 
anecdotes too often are) is characteristic at least 
of the opinion which his best friends entertained 
of Goldsmith. One afternoon, as Colonel 
O'Moore and Mr. Burke were walking to dine 
with Sir Joshua Reynolds, they observed Gold- 
smith (also on his way to Sir Joshua's) standing 
near a crowd of people, who were staring and 
shouting at some foreign women in the windows 
of one of the hotels of Leicester Square. ' Ob- 
serve Goldsmith/ said Mr. Burke to O'Moore, 
* and mark what passes between him and me by 
and by at Sir Joshua's.' They passed on, and 
arrived before Goldsmith, who came soon after, 
and Mr. Burke affected to receive him very 
coolly. This seemed to vex poor Goldsmith, 
who begged Mr. Burke to tell him how he 
had had the misfortune to offend him. Burke 



246 Oliver Goldsmith 

appeared very reluctant to speak ; but, after a 
good deal of pressing, said that he was really 
ashamed to keep up an intimacy with one who 
could be guilty of such monstrous indiscretions 
as Goldsmith had just exhibited in the square. 
Goldsmith, with great earnestness, protested he 
was unconscious of what was meant. ' Why,' 
said Burke, ' did you not exclaim, as you were 
looking up at those women, what stupid beasts 
the crowd must be for staring with such admira- 
tion at those '' painted Jezebels 1 " while a man 
of your talents passed by unnoticed?' Gold- 
smith was horror-struck, and said, ' Surely, 
surely, my dear friend, I did not say so I ' 
' Nay,' replied Burke, * if you had not said so, 
how should I have known it?' ' That's true,' 
answered Goldsmith, with great humility ; ' I 
am very sorry — it was very foolish ; I do recol- 
lect that something of the kind passed through 
my mind, but I did not think I had uttered it.' " ^ 
It is the simplicity rather than the vanity of 
Goldsmith which is here illustrated, and the 
blame of the story, if any, certainly lies with 
Burke. 

In attempting to estimate Goldsmith as he 
struck his contemporaries — to use Browning's 
phrase — it is important to bear in mind his 
^ Croker's Boswell's Johnson, i860, p. 141. 



A Memoir 247 

history and antecedents. Born a gentleman, he 
had, nevertheless, started in life with few tem- 
poral or personal advantages, and with a morbid 
susceptibility that accentuated his defects. His 
younger days had been aimless and unprofitable. 
Until he became a middle-aged man, his career 
had been one of which, even now, we do not 
know all the degradations, and they had left 
their mark upon his manners. Although he 
knew Percy as early as 1759, and Johnson in 
1 76 1, it was not until the establishment of '^The 
Club," or perhaps even until the publication of 
"The Traveller," that he became really intro- 
duced to society, and he entered it with his 
past associations still clinging about him. If 
he was — not unnaturally — elated at his success, 
he seems also to have displayed a good deal of 
that nervous self-consciousness, which charac- 
terises those who experience sudden alterna- 
tions of fortune. To men like Johnson, who 
had been intimate with him long, and recog- 
nised his genius, his attitude presented no diffi- 
culty, but to the ordinary spectator he seemed 
awkward and ill at ease, prompting once more 
the comment, that genius and knowledge of the 
world are seldom fellow-lodgers. On his own 
part, too, he must have been often uncertain 
of his position and capricious in his demands. 



248 Oliver Goldsmith 

Sometimes he was tenacious in the wrong place, 
and if he thought himself neglected, had not 
the tact to conceal his annoyance. Once, says 
Boswell, he complained to a mixed company 
that, at Lord Clare's, Lord Camden had taken 
no more notice of him than if he "had been 
an ordinary man" — an utterance which re- 
quired all Johnson's championship to defend. 
At other times he would lament to Reynolds 
that he seemed to strike a kind of awe upon 
those into whose company he went, an awe 
which he endeavoured to dispel by excess of 
hilarity and sociability. "Sir Joshua," says 
Northcote (or Laird, who collected North- 
cote's " Recollections"), "was convinced, that 
he was intentionally more absurd, in order to 
lessen himself in social intercourse, trusting 
that his character would be sufficiently sup- 
ported by his works." This anecdote may pair 
off with the story of that affected solemnity by 
which he sometimes imposed upon those about 
him ; but in either case the part is a dangerous 
one to play. 

As a conversationalist he seems to have had 
but few qualifications for success. Like Burke 
he never lost, nor, to the end of his life, cared 
to lose, his strong Irish accent. He seems 
besides, as he himself tells us, to have suffered 



A Memoir 249 

from that most fatal of all drawbacks to a racon- 
teur, a slow and hesitating manner ; and he was 
easily disconcerted by retort or discomfited in 
argument. He reasoned best, he said, with his 
pen in his hand. These things were all against 
him, and they were intensified by the competi- 
tion into which he was thrown. Among ordi- 
nary men he might have shone, but his chief 
associates in later life were some of the most 
brilliant talkers of his own, or any age. Few 
could hope to contend on equal terms with the 
trained dialectics and inexhaustible memory of 
Johnson, or to rival the mental affluence and 
brilliant rhetoric of Burke. And besides these, 
there were the refined scholarship of Langton, 
the easy savoir-vivre of Beauclerk, the wit and 
mercurial alertness of Garrick. Speaking to 
Boswell, Johnson seems to have put Goldsmith's 
position in his usual straightforward manner : 
"The misfortune of Goldsmith in conversation 
is this : he goes on without knowing how he is 
to get off. His genius is great, but his know- 
ledge is small. As they say of a generous man, 
it is a pity he is not rich, we may say of Gold- 
smith, it is a pity he is not knowing. He would 
not keep his knowledge to himself." -^ Again: 
*' Goldsmith should not be for ever attempting 
1 Hill's "BosweWs Johnson, 1887, ii, 196. 



250 Oliver Goldsmith 

to shine in conversation ; he has not temper for 
it, he is so much mortified when he fails. Sir, 
a game of jokes is composed partly of skill, 
partly of chance, a man may be beat at times by 
one who has not the tenth part of his wit. Now 
Goldsmith's putting himself against another, is 
like a man laying a hundred to one who cannot 
spare the hundred. It is not worth a man's 
while. A man should not lay a hundred to one, 
unless he can easily spare it, though he has a hun- 
dred chances for him : he can but get a guinea, 
and he may lose a hundred. Goldsmith is in 
this state. When he contends, if he gets the 
better, it is a very little addition to a man of his 
literary reputation ; if he does not get the better 
he is miserably vexed." -^ It is quite possible 
that these utterances lost nothing under Bos- 
well's recording pen. As a slight corrective to 
them may be cited a passage from '^The Par- 
lour Window " of the Reverend Edward Man- 
gin, who, as far as we are aware, has not 
hitherto been brought forward as a witness. "I 
knew an old literary man, a very keen observer 
too, who assured me that he had often been in 
company with Goldsmith, Johnson, Garrick, 
&c., and that Goldsmith used to have a crowd 
of listeners about his seat, and was a shrewd 

1 Hill's Boswell's Johnson, 1887, ii, 231. 



A Memoir 251 

and eloquent converser." ^ It is also incontest- 
able that, whatever Goldsmith's success may 
have been in the " wit-combats " at the Turk's 
Head, he frequently said very pertinent things. 
Such was his affirmation of Burke, that *' he 
wound into a subject like a serpent ; " such his 
rebuke to Boswell, babbling of Johnson's 
supremacy, that he was " for making a monarchy 
of what should be a republic." Nor was this 
the only one of his random flashes that went 
home to the great lexicographer himself. It 
was Goldsmith who said of Johnson that he had 
nothing of the bear but the skin ; that he would 
make the little fishes talk like whales ; that if 
his pistol [of argument] missed fire, he knocked 
you down with the butt end thereof — all of 
which bid fair to attain the most advanced age 
accorded to fortunate epigrams. 

Some of the pleasantest anecdotes of Gold- 
smith's career are connected with Johnson. 
No one seems to have dared to make that great 
man '' rear" in precisely the same way as 
*' Doctor Minor.'' Once, relates Johnson — 
in a well-remembered instance — they were in 
Westminster Abbey together, and pausing in 
Poets' Corner, Johnson said, sonorously (as we 
may assume) : — 

1 The Parlour Window ^ 1 841, p. 29. 



252 Oliver Goldsmith 

" Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis." 

As they returned citywards, Goldsmith pointed 
slyly to the blanching heads on Temple Bar. 

" Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur tstis,^' — 

he whispered.^ On another occasion they were 
supping on rumps and kidneys at a tavern. 
" Sir," said Johnson, " these rumps are pretty 
little things ; but then a man must eat a great 
many of them before he fills his belly." 
*' Aye," interjected Goldsmith, " but how many 
of these would reach to the moon?" "To 
the moon I " echoed Johnson ; ^* that, Sir, I 
fear, exceeds your calculations." *' Not at all, 
said Goldsmith, firmly ; 'M think I could tell." 
" Pray then let us hear." "Why," said Gold- 
smith again, speaking deliberately, " one, if it 
were long enough." Well might Johnson gasp 
— " Sir, I have deserved it ; I should not have 
provoked so foolish an answer by so foolish a 
question." But the prettiest incident of all is 
perhaps the story of the little quarrel at Dilly's 
in the Poultry. Johnson had had a long innings 
of talk, and Goldsmith, burning " to get in and 
shine " (according to Boswell), was afraid, from 
some uncouth sound the great man emitted, that 
he was preparing to start afresh. " ' Sir (said 
1 Hill's Boswell's Johyison, 1887, ii, 238. 



A Memoir 253 

he to Johnson), the gentleman has heard you 
patiently for an hour ; pray allow us now to 
hear him.' * Sir (retorted Johnson, sternly), 
I was not interrupting the gentleman. I was 
only giving him a signal of my attention. Sir, 
you are impertinent I' Goldsmith made no 
reply, but continued in the company some 
time."^ A little later Boswell takes up the 
sequel. "■ He [Johnson] and Mr. Langton and 
I went together to the Club, where we found 
Mr. Burke, Mr. Garrick, and some other 
members, and amongst them our friend Gold- 
smith, who sat silently brooding over Johnson's 
reprimand to him after dinner. Johnson per- 
ceived this, and said aside to some of us, * I'll 
make Goldsmith forgive me,' and then called to 
him in a loud voice — ' Dr. Goldsmith, — some- 
thing passed to-day where you and I dined ; I ask 
your pardon.' Goldsmith answered placidly, 
* It must be much from you. Sir, that I take ill.' 
And so at once the difference was over, and 
they were on as easy terms as ever, and Gold- 
smith rattled away as usual." ^ Such differences, 
indeed, were but momentary. Each man had a 
sincere admiration for the other, — an admira- 
tion to which the survivor often testified with a 

1 Hill's Boswell's y<?^wj^;^, 1887, ii, 255. 

2 Ibid., ii, 256. 



254 Oliver Goldsmith 

frank fidelity. Once, not long after Goldsmith's 
death, when some busy-bodies at Reynolds's 
were depreciating his work, Johnson, we are 
told, rose with great dignity, looked them full 
in the face, and exclaimed, " If nobody was 
suffered to abuse poor Goldy but those who 
could write as well, he would have few cen- 
sors 1"^ Upon another and later occasion, 
when he was discussing Goldsmith in his own 
particularly candid way, he said to Sir Joshua : 
^* Goldsmith was a man, who, whatever he 
wrote, did it better than any other man could 
do. He deserved a place in Westminster- 
Abbey, and every year he lived, would have 
deserved it better."^ 

But there must come an end to anecdote — 
even in a brief biography. It would be easy to 
multiply examples of that strange mingling of 
strength and weakness — of genius and gaucherie 
— which went to make up Goldsmith's character. 
Yet the advantage would remain with its gentler 
and more lovable aspects, and the '^ over-word " 
would still be the compassionate verdict : " Let 
not his frailties be remembered ; he was a 
very great man." And — what is perhaps more 
to the purpose of the present memoir — he was 

1 Northcote's Reynolds, 1819, i, 327. 

2 Hill's Boswell's/(?^w^w, 1887, iii, 253. 



A Memoir 255 

assuredly a Great Writer. In the fifteen years 
over which his literary activity extended, he man- 
aged to produce a record which has given him 
an unassailable position in English letters. Apart 
from mere hack-work and compilation — hack- 
work and compilation which, in most cases, he 
all but lifted to the level of a fine art — he wrote 
some of the best familiar verse in the language. 
In an age barren of poetry, he wrote two didac- 
tic poems, which are still among the memories 
of the old, as they are among the first lessons of 
the young. He wrote a series of essays, which, 
for style and individuality, fairly hold their own 
between the best work of Addison and Steele 
on the one hand, and the best work of Charles 
Lamb on the other. He wrote a domestic novel, 
unique in kind, and as cosmopolitan as '' Robin- 
son Crusoe." Finally he wrote two excellent 
plays, one of which, " She Stoops to Conquer," 
still stands in the front rank of the few popular 
masterpieces of English comedy. 



APPENDIX 



Letters to Daniel Hodson and Thomas Bond, 

A FTER this book was printed, the author was 
•^~*- permitted, by the kindness of the late Mr. 
F. Locker-Lampson, to transcribe from his col- 
lection of autographs, and to reproduce — for 
the first time — the following letters of Gold- 
smith. They relate to William Hodson, the 
nephew mentioned at p. 242 ; and supply fresh 
examples of his uncle's kindliness and generosity. 
The arrangement is conjectural. 

[No date.] 
My Dear Brother, — I have the pleasure 
of informing you that your son William is ar- 
rived in London in safety and joins with me in 
his kindest love and duty to you. Nothing 
gives me greater pleasure than the prospect I 
have of his behaving in the best and most duti- 
ful manner both to you and the rest of the 
family. Sincerely I am charmed with his dis- 
position and I am sure he feels all the good 



Appendix 257 

nature he expresses every moment for his 
friends at home. He had when he came here 
some thoughts of going upon the stage ; I dont 
know where he could have contracted so beg- 
garly an affection, but I have turned him from 
it and he is now sincerely bent on pursuing 
the study of physic and surgery in which he has 
already made a considerable progress and to 
which I have very warmly exhorted him. He 
will in less than a year be a very good Surgeon 
and he will understand a competent share of 
physic also, when he is fit for any business or 
any practice I shall use all my little interest in 
his favour. As for the stage it was every way 
a wild scheme and he is beside utterly unfit to 
succeed upon it. But while he is fitting himself 
for other business my dear Brother it is not 
proper that he should be utterly neglected. I 
have endeavoured to answer for you and my 
sister that some little thing should be done for 
him either here or at Edinburgh, and for my 
own part I am willing to contribute something 
towards his education myself. I believe an 
hundred pounds for a year or two would very 
completely do the business, when once he has 
got a profession he then may be thrown into 
any place with a prospect of succeeding. My 
Dear Dan think of this for a little, something 

17 



258 Appendix 

must be done. I will give him twenty pounds a 
year, he has already about twenty more, the rest 
must be got, and your own good sense will sug- 
gest the means. I have often told you and tell 
you again that we have all good prospects be- 
fore us, so that a little perseverance will bring 
things at last to bear. My brother Maurice 
was with me in London but it was not in my 
power to serve him effectually then ; indeed in 
a letter I wrote him I desired him by no means 
to come up but he was probably fond of the 
journey. I have already written to Dr. Hunter 
in William's favour,^ and have got him cloaths, 
etc. I only wait your answer in what manner 
further to proceed and with the sincerest affec- 
tion to you and my sister I am Dear Dan your 
most affectionate Brother 

Oliver Goldsmith. 

I had a letter from Charles who is as he tells 

me possessed of a competency and settled in 

Jamaica. 

Dan' Hodson Esq'. 

{No date.] 

My Dear Brother, — It gave me great con- 
cern to find that you were uneasy at your son's 
going abroad. I will beg leave to state my part 

1 This letter is in the possession of Mr. Baillie of 
Norfolk Square. 



Appendix 259 

in the affair and I hope you will not condemn 
me for what I have endeavoured to do for his 
benefit. When he came here first I learned that 
his circumstances were very indifferent, and 
that something was to be done to retrieve them. 
The stage was an abominable resource which 
neither became a man of honour, nor a man of 
sense. I therefore dissuaded him from that de- 
sign and turned him to physic in which he had 
before made a very great progress, and since 
that he has for this last twelve months applied 
himself to surgery, so that I am thoroughly con- 
vinced that there is not a better surgeon in the 
kingdom of Ireland than he. I was obliged to 
go down to Bath with a friend that was dying 
when my nephew sent me down your letter to 
him in which you inform him that he can no 
longer have any expectations from you and that 
therefore he must think of providing for him- 
self. With this letter he sent me one of his own 
where he asserted his fixed intentions of going 
surgeon's mate to India. Upon reading the two 
letters I own I thought something was to be 
done. I therefore wrote to a friend in Town 
who procured him the assurance of a place 
as full surgeon to India. This with supplying 
him with about five and forty pounds is what I 
did in my endeavours to serve him. I thought 



26o ' Appendix 

him helpless and unprovided for, and I was 
ardent in my endeavours to remove his perplexi- 
ties. Whatever his friends at home may think 
of a surgeon's place to the East Indies, it is not 
so contemptible a thing, and those who go sel- 
dom fail of making a moderate fortune in two or 
three voyages. But be this as it may William is 
now prevailed upon to return home to take your 
further advice and instructions upon the matter. 
He has laboured very hard since he left you, 
and is capable of living like a gentleman in any 
part of the world. He has answered his ex- 
aminations as a Surgeon and has been found 
sufficiently qualified. I entreat therefore you 
will receive him as becomes him and you, and 
that you will endeavour to serve the young man 
effectually not by foolish fond caresses but by 
either advancing him in his business or setling 
him in life. I could my Dear Brother say a 
great deal more, but am obliged to hasten this 
letter as I am again just setting out for Bath, 
and I honestly say I had much rather it had 
been for Ireland with my nephew, but that 
pleasure I hope to have before I die. 
I am Dear Dan 

Your most affectionate 

Brother Oliver Goldsmith. 
Daniel Hodson Esq''. 



Appendix 261 

Temple. Brick Court. 

December 16 1772 

Dear Sir, — I received your letter, inclosing 
a draft upon Kerr and company which when due 
shall be applied to the discharge of a part of my 
nephew's debts He has written to me from 
Bristol for ten pound which I have sent him in 
a bank note enclosed he has also drawn upon 
me by one Mr. Odonogh for ten pound more, 
the balance therefore having paid his servant 
maid, as likewise one or two trifles more re- 
mains with me. As he will certainly have 
immediate and pressing occasion for the rest 
when he arrives I beg youl remit the rest to me 
and I will take care to see it applied in the 
most proper manner. He has talked to me of a 
matrimonial scheme. If that could take place 
all would soon be well. I am Dear Sir your 
affection Kinsman and humble servant 

Oliver Goldsmith. 

Be pleased to answer this directly 

Mr Thomas Bond Attorney 
in Montrath Street 
Dublin 

Little definite is known respecting "William 
Hodson. He was the son of Daniel Hodson 
and Catherine, Goldsmith's second sister {vide 

< f 



262 Appendix 

p. ii). Cradock. says he practised as an 
apothecary in Newman Street ; and it is further 
alleged of him that he once paid a small debt 
with an undrawn lottery ticket which came 
up a prize of ;^ 20,000. In 1807, according to 
Annesley Strean, his son, Oliver Goldsmith 
Hodson, had succeeded to the paternal estate. 
The Dr. Hunter, mentioned at p. 258, is Dr. 
William Hunter ; and the closing lines of the 
second letter (p. 260) tend to confirm the belief 
that Goldsmith never re-visited Ireland after he 
left it in 1752. 



Index 



" Adventures of a Strolling 

Player," 89. 
" Animated Nature," 179, 206, 

Anodyne Necklace (i. e., a hal- 
ter), 48. 

Ballantyne, William, 157. 
Barlow, Peter, 175. 
Beatty, John, 13, 17, 46. 
"Beauties of English Poesy," 

151. 
Beauclerk, Topham, iii, 224; 

quoted, 225. 
"Beau Tibbs,"98. 
Bee, T/ze, 78-81 ; quoted, 48, 

81 ; verses in, 82-8 3. 
" Bolingbroke, Life of." 198. 
" Bookseller of the Last Cen- 
tury, A," 102, 104. 
Boswell, James, 112, 117, 139, 

195, 206, 221, 232, 237-239, 

243> 244, 248, 249 ; quoted, 

134, 181-183. 
Bott, Mr. Edmund, 178. 
Breakneck Steps, 66, 71. 
Brick Court, Middle Temple 

(No. 2), 169, 206, 231. 
British Magazine) T/ie, 43, 86, 

88, 89, 90. 
Brooke's '' System of Natural 

History," Preface to, 107. 
Bryanton, Robert, of Bally- 

mulvey, 17, 22, 57, 58, 69 j 

letters to, 28-29, 58. 
Bunbury, Henry William, the 

Caricaturist, 192, 235. 



Bunbury, Mrs., see " Horneck, 

Catherine." 
Burke, Edmund, iii, 162, 196, 

226, 228, 231, 245, 246. 
Busy Body, The, jy, 82. 
Byrne, Thomas, 5, 34, 187. 

Campbell, Mr., 9. 

Canonbury House, 104, 153. 

** Captivity, Oratorio of the," 
233 n. 

Chamier, Mr., iii. 

Chatterton, Thomas, 205. 

"Chinese Letters," 90, 93. 

Christian Magazine, The, 91. 

Churchill, Charles, 109, 116. 

"Citizen of the World, The," 
42, 71, 90, 93 ; preface 
quoted, 93-84 ; characteris- 
tics of, 95-96 ; the '* Man 
in Black" and "Beau 
Tibbs," 97-98. 

"City Night Piece, A," 79, 



"Cla 



landestine Marriage, The," 

160. 
Clare, Lord, see " Nugent, 

Robert." 
" Clown's Reply, The," 28. 
"Club, The," no, in, 158, 
Cock Lane Ghost, Pamphlet 

on, 92, 
Collins, Benjamin, printer, of 

Salisbury, 103, 132, 139, 141, 

145- 
Colman, George, Manager of 
Covent Garden Theatre, 



264 



Index 



160, 162, 163, 196, 211, 212, 
214, 217. 

Comedy, '* Genteel," or " Sen- 
timental," 159. 
** Compendium of Biography," 

100. 
Contarine, Jane, afterwards 

Mrs., Lawder, 22, 23, 57 ; 

letter to, 59-62. 
Contarine, Rev. Mr., 12, 17, 

21, 23, 26, 30,34, 62 ; letters 

to, 30-34. 
Cook, William {European 

Magazine), 118, 140, 169, 

175, 176, 177, 185, 239 ; 

quoted, 35, 6i, 107, 137, 172, 

173, 186,214. 
Cradock, Joseph, 130, 144, 209, 

218, 223 ; quoted, 239. 
Critical Review, TAe, 6^. 
Croker, John Wilson, quoted, 

245. 
Crown Tavern at Islington, 

154. 157. 
Cumberland, Richard, 136, 226, 
227 ; quoted, 136. 

Davies, Thomas, the book- 
seller, 157, 198, 199, 223, 227, 
243> 244 ; quoted, 237. 

Delap, Elizabeth, 5. 

" Deserted Village, The," 71, 
79, 172 ; published, 185 ; 
dedicated to Reynolds, 185 ; 
depopulation theor}^, 185 ; 
identity of Auburn and Lis- 
soy, 186-187 ; qualities of 
the poem, 188 ; farewell to 
poetry, 188, 189 ; sum paid 
to author, 189. 

" Description of an Author's 
Bedchamber," 69, 70. 

*' Dictionary of Arts and 
Sciences," 223, 224. 

** Distresses of a Common 
Soldier," 95, 125. 



" Distresses of the Poor," 82. 
Dodsley, the bookseller, 136. 
" Double Transformation, 

The," 126. 
Dyer, Samuel, iii. 

" Edwin and Angelina " (The 
Hermit), 129, 130, 131, 141, 
142, 150, 151-152. 

" Elegy on a Mad Dog," 141. 

" Elegy on Mrs. Mary Blaize," 
45, 82, 83. 

Ellis, Dr., Goldsmith's fellow- 
student at Leyden, 34. 

"English Grammar," 151. 

" Enquiry into Polite Learning 
in Europe," 42, 57, 59, 73-78, 
82, 1C9, 116. 

" Essays, by Mr. Goldsmith," 
98, 124; preface and con- 
tents, 124-125 ; European 
Magazine y They 35, 66. 

"False Delicacy," Kelly's, 
163. 

Fielding, Henry, So. 

Filby, William, Goldsmith's 
Tailor, 182, 183 n., 240; 
quoted, 241. 

Fleming, Mrs., of Islington, 
105, ic6, 109, 140 ; her ac- 
counts, 105-106, no, 113. 

Foley, Statue of Goldsmith by, 

233- 
Ford, Mr. Edward, 144. 
Forster, Mr. John, 157, 204 n., 

219, 23^, 240; his "Life of 

Goldsmith " quoted, 51, 107, 

109, III, 162, 201. 
"Friar of Orders Gray," 152, 

153- 

" GAMEof Chess," Goldsmith's 
translation of Vida's, 204 n. 

Garden Court, Temple, Gold- 
smith in, 154. 



Index 



265 



Garrick, David, 160, 161, 162, 
164, 181, 182, 223, 224, 225, 
229 ; epitaph on, 226. 

Gaubius, Professor of Chem- 
istry at Leyden, 33. 

Gibbon, Edward, 224. 

Gibbs, Mr. J. W. M., 39, 54 n. 

Glover, William, 158, 176; 
quoted, 40, 176. 

Goethe, quoted, 146-147. 

Golden, Peggy, 7, 171. 

Goldsmith, Ann (Goldsmith's 
mother), 3, 21, 24, 198. 

Goldsmith, Catherine (after- 
wards Mrs. Hodson), 11, 20, 
24. 

Goldsmith, Rev. Charles (Gold- 
smith's father), 3, 4, 12, 17, 
20. 

Goldsmith, Charles (Gold- 
smith's brother), 54. 

Goldsmith, Dean, ofCloyne, 27. 

Goldsmith, Rev. Henry (Gold- 
smith's eldest brother), 4, 8, 
II, 17, 20, 26, 115, 172, 185; 
letter to, 19, 64^65, 68-71. 

Goldsmith, John, of Bally- 
oughter (Goldsmith's uncle), 
8. 

Goldsmith, Oliver, his family, i ; 
father, 3 ; birth, 4 ; removal 
to Lissoy, 4; first teachers, 
Elizabeth Delap and Thomas 
Byrne, 5-6; has the small-pox, 
7; anecdotes of childhood, 
7-8 ; at school at Elphin and 
Athlone, 8-9 ; at Edgeworths- 
town,9 ; adventures at Ardagh, 
10, II ; marriage of sister 
Catherine, 11 ; sizar at Trin- 
ity College, Dublin, 13; his 
tutor, Theaker Wilder, 13; 
involved in a college riot, 15, 
16; gets a small exhibition, 
16 ; runs away and returns, 
16, 17 ; writes songs for bal- 



lad singers, 17; anecdote of 
his benevolence, 18 ; takes 
B. A. degree, 18 ; relics of 
college life, 18 ; rejected for 
holy orders, 23 ; tutor to Mr. 
Flinn, 23 ; sets out for Amer- 
ica and returns, 24-25 ; letter 
to his mother, 25-26 ; starts 
(fruitlessly) to study law, 26; 
goes to Edinburgh to study 
medicine, 27 ; admitted a 
medical student, 27 ; visits 
the Highlands, 30 ; starts for 
Paris, 30 ; adventures by the 
way, 30-32 ; leaves Leyden, 
34 ; travels on the Continent, 
34-40 ; lands at Dover, 40 ; 
first struggles on reaching 
England, 43-44 ; physician 
in Bankside, 44-45 ; proof 
reader to Richardson, 46 ; 
his tragedy, 47; projects for 
the East, 47; at Peckam 
Academy, 48-51; bound to 
Griffiths, the bookseller, 51 ; 
** Memoirs of a Protestant," 
55-56; goes back to Peckham, 
56 ; obtains and loses appoint- 
ment in East Indies, 62 ; fails 
at Surgeons' Hall as a hospi- 
tal mate, 63; No. 12, Green 
Arbour Court, Old Bailey, 
66; difficulties with Griffiths, 
67, 68; visit from Percy, 71, 
72; " Present State of Polite 
Learning," 73-78 ; writes 
for The Busy Body and The 
Lady^s Magazine^ "jy ; The 
Bee^ 77-83; visited by New- 
bery and Smollett, 86 ; con- 
tributions to The British 
Magazine 86, 2>7 ; " History 
of Miss Stanton," 87, 88; 
contributions to The Public 
Ledger, 89 ; edits The Ladfs 
Magazine, 90; moves into 



266 



Index 



No. 6, Wine Office Court, 
Fleet Street, 91 ; visited 
there by Johnson, 91; " Me- 
moirs of Voltaire," 92 ; "His- 
tory of Mecklenburgh," 92 ; 
" Mystery Revealed," 92 ; 
"Citizen of the World," 
93-99; "Compendium of 
Biography," 100; "Life of 
Nash,"ioi; sale of third share 
of "Vicar of Wakefield," 
loi, 102 ; removes to Mrs. 
Fleming's at Islington, 103- 
104; Mrs. Fleming's ac- 
counts, 105, 106; hack-work 
for Newbery, 106, 107 ; " Let- 
ters of a Nobleman," 107; 
Hogarth at Islins;ton, 109- 
iio; "The Club" formed, 
no, in; working on "The 
Traveller," 113; publication 
of that poem, 115; described, 
115-123; "Essays, by Mr. 
Goldsmith," 124-125 ; friend- 
ship with Nugent (Lord 
Clare), 127; visits North- 
umberland House, 127-128; 
" Edwin and Angelina, " 129; 
resumes medical practice, 131, 
132; "Vicar of Wakefield," 
132; story of sale, 133-141; 
date of production, 141 ; char- 
acteristics, 142-144; theories 
of Mr. Ford, 144; bibliogra- 
phy, &c., 144-147; Formey's 
"History of Philosophy," 
&c., translated, 150; "Poems 
for Young Ladies," 150; 
"English Grammar," 151; 
* ' Beauties of English Poesy,' ' 
151; letter to St. James'' s 
Chronicle, 1 5 1 ; at Canonbury 
House, 153; at the Temple, 
154; visited by Parson Scott, 
155; " Roman History," 
157; the "Wednesday Club," 



158 ; " Good Natur'd Man " 
produced, 163 ; its story, 
159-167; at 2, Brick Court, 
Middle Temple, 169; relaxa- 
tions and festivities, 1 69-1 71 ; 
death of Henry Goldsmith, 
171; begins "The Deserted 
Village," 172; "Shoemaker's 
holidays " and " Shoemaker's 
Paradise," 173-174; Mr. 
Fdmund Bott, 178-179; old 
compilations and new, 179, 
180 ; epilogue to Mrs. Len- 
ox's "Sister," 180; a dinner 
at Boswell's, 181-183; ap- 
pointed Professor of History 
to the Royal Academy, 184 ; 
letter to Maurice Goldsmith, 
184; portrait painted by 
Reynolds, 184; "The De- 
serted Village," 185-190; the 
Horneck family, 191-192; 
" Life of Parnell," 193 ; visits 
Paris, 193-197 ; " Abridgment 
of Roman History," 198; 
" Life of Bolingbroke," 199 ; 
Lord Clare and "The Haunch 
of Venison," 200-204; ^t the 
Royal Academy dinner, 204; 
at Edgeware, 206-207 ; "His- 
tory of England," 207; pro- 
logue to Cradock's " Zo- 
beide," 209; "Threnodia 
Augustalis," 209; letter to 
Mrs. Bunbury, 209-211; 
"She Stoops to Conquer" 
produced, 213 ; its story, 211- 
216; \\he\\&6.hy The Land 071 
Packet, 217-220; dining at 
Oglethorpe's, 221 ; at Paoli's, 
221 ; " The Grumbler," 222; 
"Grecian History," 223; 
" Dictionary of Arts and 
Sciences," 223; "Retalia- 
tion," 225-228 ; illness, 229- 
230; death and burial, 231, 



Index 



267 



232 ; Johnson's epitaph, 232 ; 
other memorials, 233; por- 
traits, 234-236; testimonials 
as to character, 236, 237; 
money difficulties, 237-240; 
love of play, 239, 240; of fine 
clothes, 240-242 ; generosity 
and benevolence, 242-243 ; 
alleged envy and malice, 243- 
244 ; simplicity, 245-246 ; 
position in society, 247-248 ; 
conversation, 248-249 ; rela- 
tions with Johnson, 251-252; 
conclusion, 254-255; letters 
to Daniel Hodson and 
Thomas Bond, 256-262. 

Goldsmith's hostess, 109. 

Goldsmyth, John, i. 

*' Good Natur'd Man, The," 
163 ; produced, 163 ; Gold- 
smith on the first night, 164, 
his gains, 166 ; Da vies on the 
play, 166, 168, 183 n., 212, 
224. 

Gordon, Mr., 158. 

Gray's " Odes," 53. 

Grecian History, 206, 223. 

Green Arbour Court, Old 
Bailey, 66, 71. 

Green, Rev. Mr., of Kilkenny 
West, 3. 

Griffiths, the bookseller, 51, 52, 
53, 67, 68. 

"Grumbler, The," 222. 

Gunning, Elizabeth, Duchess 
of Hamilton, 28. 

Gunns, Miss, the two, 241. 

Gwyn, Mrs., see " Horneck, 
Mary." 

" Haunch of Venison, The," 
184, 201 ; quoted, 201-203, 
233 n,, 235. 

Hawes, William, 230 ; his " Ac- 
count of Dr. Goldsmith's ill- 
ness," 230 n.; quoted, 243. 



Hawkins, Mr., afterwards Sir 
John, III, 112, 130, 136; 
quoted, 127-12S, 137, 138, 
141. 

"Hermit, The," see "Edwin 

and Angehna." 
Hickey, Mr., 196. 
Higgins, Captain, 219. 
"History of England," 108, 

207. 
" History of Miss Stanton," Zj. 

88. 
'* History of Philosophy and 

Philosophers," 150. 
" History of Rome," 179. 
" History of the Seven Years 

War," 54. 
Hodson, Daniel, 20, 62, 257, 

258. 
Hodson, William, his son, 242, 

257-260. 
Hogarth, William, 109. 
Holberg, Baron de, 34. 
Horneck, Catherine (" Little 

Comedy "), afterwards Mrs. 

Bunbury, 191, 192, 209 ; 

letter to, in rhyme, 210. 
Horneck, Charles (The " Cap- 
tain in Lace "), 191, 219, 220. 
Horneck, Mary, (The "Jessamy 

Bride"), afterwards Mrs. 

Gwyn, 113, 131, 191, 192, 

i93> 219, 231, 234, 235. 
Horneck, Mrs. Hannah (The 

" Plymouth Beauty " ), 191. 
Hughes, Rev. Patrick, of Edge- 

worthstown, 9. 

« Iris, To," 82. 

Irving, Washington, quoted, 66, 

158. 
Ivy Lane Club, The, in. 

Johnson, Samuel, 80, 82, 86, 
109, no, 117, 138, 139, 160, 
161, 164, 170, 180, 184, 188, 



268 



Index 



205, 214, 226, 231, 232, 242 ; 
quoted, 113, ii8, 122, 134, 
I35>i55, i64> 165, 167, 180, 
182, 212, 215, 237, 238, 244, 
249, 251, 252, 253. 
Jones, Rev. Oliver (Gold- 
smith's grandfather), 2. 

Kelly, Hugh, 158, 163, 217, 
224, 231. 

Kenrick, Dr., 151, 218, 220. 

King's Bench Walks, Gold- 
smith in, 154. 

Lady^s Magazine^ The, yj, 90. 
Langton, Bennet, m, 207, 211, 
Lawder, Mrs., see " Contarine, 

Jane." 
Lenox, Mrs., Charlotte, 180. 
"Letters from a Nobleman to 

his Son," 107, 157. 
Letters of Goldsmith, 58-63, 

64-65, 67-68, 69-72, 184, 

194, 195, 207, 209-211, 220, 

256-262. 
Literary Club, The, 112. 
Literary Magazine, T/te, ^4^n. 
Lissoy, 4, 186-187. 
" Logicians Refuted, The," 82, 

126. 
Lumpkin, Tony, 22, 215. 

Macaulay on " The Trav- 
eller," I 19-120. 

Macleane, Mr. Lauchlan, 31. 

Mangin, Rev. Edward, quoted, 
250. 

" Man in Black," The, 4, 97- 
98. 

"Memoirs of a Protestant," 

55-56. 

Mills, Edward, 17, 18, 57, 58. 

Milner, Dr., of Peckham Acad- 
emy, 48, 51, 56. 

Milner, Miss Hester, 50, 51. 

Milner, Mrs., 49. 



Monro, Alexander, Professor of 
Anatomy at Edinburgh, 28. 

Montagu, Mrs., 131. 

Monthly Review^ The, 51, 53, 
67; Goldsmith's work for, 
53 ; reviews Gray's " Odes " 

in, 53-54- 
" Mystery Revealed, The," 92. 

" Nash, Life of Richard," loi. 

Newbery, Francis (John New- 
bery's nephew), 132, 150. 

Newbery, Francis (John New- 
bery' s son), 104. 

Newbery, John, 86, 103, 106, 

"3, I33> 136, 137, 139, 140, 
148, 150, 151, 154, 156. 

"New Simile, A," 126. 

Northcote, 195, 248. 

Northumberland, Earl of, after- 
wards Duke, 127, 199. 

Nugent, Dr., iii, 127. 

Nugent, Robert, afterwards 
Lord Clare, 126, 127 n., 199, 
200, 201, 203, 248. 

0'CAROLAN,the blind harper, 7. 

Paoli, General, 221. 

Pamell, Thomas, 3 ; " Life of," 

193- 
Percy, Dr. Thomas, afterwards 

Bishop of Dromore, 35, 72, 

129, 152, 205. 
"Percy Memoir" quoted, 31, 

49, 50. 65, 71, 72, 91, 127, 

129, 141. 
"Piety in Pattens," Foote's, 

212. 
Pilkington, Matthew, 99. 
Piozzi, Mrs., see " Thrale, 

Mrs." 
"Poems for Young Ladies," 

150. 
Portraits of Goldsmith, 184, 

235-236. 



Index 



269 



Primrose, George, 35, 36, 39, 
43,48,85. 

*' Prince Bonbennin and the 
White Mouse," 99. 

Prior, Mr., afterwards Sir 
James, 59 n., 105, 117, 191, 
223, 240 ; his " Life of Gold- 
smith" quoted, 51, 63, 113, 
131-132, 194-196, 206, 228. 

Prior, Matthew, 151. 

Public Ledger, The, 59, 89, 104. 

" Rasselas," Johnson's, 82. 

" Reliques, of Ancient Poetry," 
Percy's, 73, 130, 153. 

" Resverie, A," 80. 

" Reverie at the Boar's Head," 
87, 88. 

*' Retaliation," its origin, 225 ; 
epitaph on Garrick, 226 ; on 
Reynolds, 228; on Caleb 
Whitefoord, 228; published, 
233 n. 

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, no, 113, 
131, 161, 162, 181, 184, 192, 
i93> i95» 197, 207, 223, 225, 
226; epitaph on, 228, 231, 
235» 241, 242, 245, 248. 

Richardson, Samuel, 46. 

" Roman History," 157, 180. 

" Roman History, Abridgment 
of, " 198. 

Romeiro, Juan, 2. 

Saloop, see "sassafras." 

Sassafras, 105. 

Scott, Parson, 155, 204. 

Seguin, Mr., 170. 

Seguin, Mrs., 171. 

Sheridan, Thomas, 3. 

Sheridan, Thomas, the Actor, 
61 n. 

Sidebotham, Mrs., 131. 

" She Stoops to Conquer," 11, 
21 ; produced at Covent Gar- 
den, 213 ; dedicated to John- 



son, 213 ; the first night, 
214 ; characteristics and suc- 
cess, 215, 217, 222. 

•' Shoemaker's holidays," 173. 

" Shoemaker's Paradise " at 
Edge ware, 177. 

Sleigh, Dr., 31. 

Smollett, Dr. Tobias, 77, 86. 

Steele's comedies, 159. 

Strahan, 133, 139. 

Strean, Annesley, 9, 23, 262. 

Taylor, Isaac, 124. 

Taylor's " Records of my 

Life" quoted, 176. 
Thrale, Mrs., afterwards Mrs. 

Piozzi, 137, 164, 166 ; quoted; 

i35» 138. 

" Threnodia Augustahs," 209. 

"Traveller, The," 33, 113, 
1 14-123 ; dedication to Henry 
Goldsmith, 115-117 ; unique 
copy, 114 n. ; Johnson's 
part in, 11 7-1 18; charac- 
teristics of, 1 19-122 ; bibliog- 
raphy, 122 ; sum paid 
to author, 123, 128, 135, 

139, 149. 

"Twitcher's Advocate" (Par- 
son Scott), 155. 

"Vicar of Wakefield, The," 
quoted, 35, 2>7, 48, 86 ; pub- 
lished, 132 ; sale of, 102, 133; 
Boswell's " authentic "ac- 
count," 134 ; variants of 
Mrs. Piozzi, Hawkins, Cum- 
berland, 135-136; Cook's 
version, 137-138 ; attempts 
to harmonise discrepancies, 
138-140 ; date of composi- 
tion, 140-141 ; characteristics, 
142-143 ; theories of Mr. 
Ford, 144 ; bibliography, 145, 
148, 149. _ 

"Voltaire, Memoirs of," 69, 
92 ; quoted, 38-39. 



270 



Index 



Waller, Dr. J. F., 13. 
Walpole, Horace, quoted, 204, 

214. 
Welsh, Mr. Charles, 102, 103, 

133* 
Whitehead, William, 162. 

Wilder, Rev. Theaker, 13, 14, 

16, 17. ^ 
Willington, James, 55. 



Wine Office Court (No. 6), 91 ; 

Johnson's visit to, 91. 
Wolfe, James, kinsman of the 

Goldsmiths, 2. 
"Written Mountains," The, 

47, 48. 

" ZoBEiDE," Prologue to Cra- 
dock's, 209, 



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